


Chasing Home

by context_please



Series: Homeward [2]
Category: Jurassic Park (Movies), Jurassic World (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Owen Grady is badass, Owen is the best alpha, Pack Dynamics, Pack Feels, Pairing is not the main focus, Post-Movie(s), Raptor Feels, Velociraptors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-29
Updated: 2015-09-01
Packaged: 2018-04-11 07:55:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 23
Words: 43,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4427483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/context_please/pseuds/context_please
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Indominus Rex, Owen Grady is left without his pack. He follows his instincts and finds himself back on Isla Nublar, chasing home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A multi-chapter fic? What is this?!
> 
> Yeah, I've decided to give it a shot. Usually I'll finish writing any larger fics and post them as one large file, but I figured I may as well let you come on this journey with me. 
> 
> I have no idea how long this will be. All I know is that it's probably going to be quite the saga to write, so I appreciate any patience you can give me. Alternatively, you are welcome to nag me if you like it.
> 
> The opening sequence commences a week and a half after the Indominus incident and does follow movie canon until that point. This follows my other Jurassic World fic 'Eyes on Me', but you don't have to read it to understand this. It would be of benefit to you, but it's not necessary. (ETA: I have connected the two for your convenience!)
> 
> Please don't hate me.

Sunlight beats down onto his scalp.

The last time he was here, the touch of night soothed the heat of the day. Moonlight slanted off of broken glass. Glinted off of bracelets and necklaces, dropped in the haste to flee the screeching fury raining onto their heads. Sightless eyes watched him from the shadows but never followed him.

Fuck, he’s getting paranoid.

Wind whips around his face, and he pulls his arm over his head, taking a few steps forward. Deep, rapid thumps fill the air. It’s not the sweeping whoosh of a flyer’s wings – it’s much more familiar. He expects the dust that whips up into his face, stabbing into his eyes. He doesn’t close them. The sightless eyes are gone, now, and yet it’s even more dangerous than that night.

The chopper finally lifts off, taking its mini tornado with it. When it’s clear, Owen turns. Barry leans out of the open doors, clutching precariously at a strip of fabric. It’s probably all that’s keeping him from a messy death. Barry thinks Owen’s crazy, and ain’t that fucking rich.

Barry’s usual singlet and flannel have been traded in for a tailored shirt, tie dancing wildly in the crosswind. Owen isn’t the gay best friend – doesn’t know _a thing_ about fashion, really – but he does know that a black tie and a pale blue shirt are always a good combination. If finds his bungalow miraculously untouched, he’ll probably need his own shirt. It’s an exact copy of Barry’s and he couldn’t care less. Owen doesn’t stand on ceremony – really, isn’t that just the icing on the cake – and he hates wearing monkey suits. Despite his love of animals, he’s not a chimpanzee and he knows it. (Yes, he did spend a month working with them when he was twenty-one, young and impressionable. When passing his college degree was the extent of his worries and he was still crushing on the chimp keeper. The zoo internship was the highlight of Owen’s college experience, and he thinks that’s when he knew he was doing the right thing. He enjoyed working with the chimpanzees – witnessing their intelligence firsthand – yet it wasn’t the primates that caught his attention. It was the carnivores who piqued his interest but the dolphins who held it.)

Owen isn’t sure what he’ll find if he does back to his bungalow. Isn’t sure he’ll find anything at all. He stored food there, after all – and dinosaurs have excellent noses. Maybe the Rex won’t bother with his tiny shack, and maybe she’ll think it’s worth the effort. She could probably eat it with no trouble. Owen’s not sure whether seeing his bungalow in ruins is a funny image or a sad one. The picture of his dirty socks hanging out of the Rex’s mouth is pretty hilarious. Maybe he can rekindle his artistic skill (read: the ability to finger paint) and make a physical rendition.

Rexy will probably eat his formalwear if she takes a bite out of his house. The thought is completely and totally welcome. (Owen still doesn’t understand why Claire thought boardshorts were not appropriate date material. Whatever – so he’s bitter about it. If he’d managed to get her between his sheets that night, she wouldn’t have complained. Boardshorts, he finds, are wonderfully easy-access.)

He wonders if the dinosaurs have the same irreverence for authority his commanding officers always accused him of. Wonders what Rexy sees. Are they just blurs in a see of swirling colour? Does her world spin when she walks, or does she have the dinosaur equivalent to ADHD? It would explain a lot. And Owen won’t pity her or anything – she does a fantastic job of killing tourists, even with her deficiency.

Barry’s still waving wildly at him, rocking with the helicopter as it banks high over the lagoon. Owen raises his arm, gives him a thumbs up. He can’t hear Barry’s laugh over the thumping of chopper blades and roar of the wind, but he can see the clench of his stomach and the shake of his head. See the laughter in his open mouth, white teeth flashing against his skin.

Owen gives him the bird, because he’s not completely and totally crazy, thank you very much.

Barry just shakes his head again, retreating into the chopper. It’s sleek and long, blades spinning so fast they blur into the patches of cloud behind them. Watching it bank left gently, Owen is struck by the familiarity of it. How many times has he stood on the shore of some distant land, watching his ride vanish into the cloudy ceiling, hoping he sees it again in a week? Hoping the brass will decide he’s worth the effort.

Hoping he won’t be left with nothing but the sand seeping into his boots.

This time, it’s his choice. And he’ll be damned if he’s going to regret it.

The chopper is alien, black and conspicuous against the bright blue sky. Clouds hang around like bad smells, dark and heavy. There are only a few of them now, and he’s not sure whether they’ll clear up or gather together in a show of fluffy solidarity. Honestly, if a storm does blow in, it’ll be just his luck. The universe hates him – he’s already established that. It’s just a matter of how much.

A dark shadow rises to the surface of the lagoon, gliding like an eagle. It’s huge – larger than Owen remembers. The vastness of her fills the lagoon. She barely moves her fins but she’s keeping track with the chopper, engulfing its shadow with her own. She rises to the surface like a wraith, silent and deadly. She is a demon, emerging from the fog. The ridges along her back burst into the air for a mere moment, disappearing under the water again.

Something clamors wildly in his throat at the sight of her. He takes a step back from the lagoon, towards the scent of fear and death. Owen’s not sure if the lingering stench of piss is enough to mask him but it’s all he’s got. As much as it sucked ass being stuck under an SUV as the Indominus decided whether he would be worth the tang of petrol on her tongue, at least he could do something. Now he hopes he’s taken himself far enough out of range and pretends he remembers how far she can leap.

She’s like a fury, keeping pace with the chopper. Like some creature of myth and legend come to devour them all. The mosasaurus is ancient fury and primal hunger. It’s like he can feel it rolling off of the lagoon water, and he makes a mental note never to drink from it. His chest tightens sporadically, ribs burning.

The mosa is hungry. She’s hankering for her next meal, ready to eat whatever she sees. However unappetizing the chopper is, it’s probably the only thing stupid enough to come within range of her. The others can sense her hunting instincts; know she’s hungry.

She ate all of the Indominus Rex, and probably some stray flyers the clean-up crew hastily dumped in her lagoon when they came back for the human bodies. She can go for a week without eating, sure, but it’s been a week and a half. The mosa is probably confused by the lack of tiny humans providing her food. If Owen’s learned anything from his life experiences, it’s that a confused animal is a dangerous animal.

The chopper finally clears the lagoon, disappearing into the blue patchy sky. Owen sighs a little to himself, relieved. He saved Barry once – he can’t have the guy dying on him now.

The mosa’s vast shadow twists gracefully, coming in his direction.

Not willing to find out how far she can leap when she’s desperate, Owen stumbles back about fifteen meters, lining up with the ruined buildings. There’s no splashing or pissed off roars, so he lets out the breath he’s holding, ridding himself of the strain in his lungs.

The sun bears down on him like the weight of the world. It sits on his shoulders the way his rank used to.

Owen pushes it all aside and turns, starting down the main thoroughfare. It’s entirely too quiet in this place. He’s worked at Jurassic World for years, and he’s never seen it empty. Has never been able to stand in this very spot and hear the pass of oxygen through his lips. Could never feel the thump of his heart over the vibrations of forty thousand feet.

His gut pushes him into movement, steering him down main street. Sunlight bounces off of broken glass and shards of mirrored signs, catching dully on metal struts. The struts were ripped clear of the buildings, and now they’re strewn forlornly in front of what used to be their homes. Red brick dust and gyprock flakes catch in the wind, swirling lazily across his vision.

His heel crunches on a solid object. Lifting his boot, he flinches back as light stabs him right in the eye. Crouching lessens the glare and he picks up the offending object. It’s like the charm bracelet he gave his mum for Christmas last year. The clasp is broken, hinges busted, but the charms are still hugging stubbornly to the metal cable. They cling to it like the tourists clung to their children. Like the flyers clung to their prey.

Owen shoves the thought aside, bringing the jewelry closer to his face. It’s bright silver, shining even more brightly as he brushes some dirt off of a little dog’s head. The metal is cool and smooth against his thumb. It’s completely filled with charms, but it’s so shiny he thinks the owner had it cleaned before she came to Jurassic World. The little birthday cake inscribed with a cursive _50_ and the teapot have been so carefully polished she must have cared deeply for it. There’s a gold _mum_ in a silver heart, closely followed by an Eiffel Tower dangling precariously. Owen wonders – stupidly – about the life she has. Whether the bracelet was a gift from her children – if her family is like Owen’s. Which charms are her favourite and which are obligatory gifts she wears because she has to. Don’t want to insult the family, after all. It’s a lesson Owen’s learned the hard way, over the years.

When he lowers the bracelet from his face, he realizes just how stupid he is.

Red stains the colour of rotting tomatoes spread over the cobbled stone. Little splashes of it litter the street, turning the ground into a patchwork of grey and red. Just by his feet, a large expanse of it has soaked into the stone, as if drawn down to the greedy soil beneath. Owen’s seen enough of the stuff to know it’s blood – and he’s seen too many friends pale in death to think whoever made it is still alive. Why else would the bracelet still be here?

He remembers the day he promised himself he’d never see this much blood again. Now he’s staring at what’s left of someone’s life, spilled carelessly over unyielding stone, and his stomach flips dangerously. He’s not sure how much stone is visible on this street, any more.

Owen lets the bracelet slip through his fingers like water. He leaves it for the birds. It’s not really good for anything else, now.

Something lodges in his chest, pushes him to glance into the buildings around him. Owen Grady isn’t a coward, and he’s not weak. He’s come back to this fucking island, after all. But shit’s changed since he was last here. Instinct wars with logic in his chest. Logic says he’s fucking crazy to be here. Instinct says it’s not enough that he’s on the island – he needs to do more.

For all the times that logic has saved his ass, his instincts have kept him alive. They don’t keep him whole – nothing does anymore – but it’s enough.

Owen keeps moving.

He’s ducking into the closest building before he knows what he’s doing. The sign is mangled and dented, hanging precariously from the front of the shop. Inside is darker than he remembers, somehow, even with the sun slanting in behind him. The last time he was here, only the silver moon guided his way, glinting in pools of black.

The wood used to be light, here. Used to be unmarked, untouched by the taint of suffering. Now, Owen struggles to find a patch of wood amongst the endless river of dried blood. The rubble is completely cleared in this room, as if the building was clear when Delta impacted.

He knows it’s not true – he had to pick through sharp metallic shavings and slabs of brick to get to her, after all. The ghostly feeling of glass breaking underfoot and a piece of concrete shoving into his knee rise up through his chest. It’s like he’s still there, in that moment. His gut twisting as she pants. Water on his cheeks and blood on hers. Frothing nostrils. Bones shifting and creaking together. She’s _there_ , real as a physical thing, for just a moment. Her eyes scream, plead, beg. Owen’s head pounds thickly, heart weighed down with the vision of her sorrow. His legs are numb as he staggers back, and something wells up in his lungs, filling them like pneumonia. Gut tingling and aching and squirming around like a tapeworm, he turns around. Delta flashes behind his eyes. In his head. Through his heart, no longer here to repair the damage she’s caused.

Owen looks right into the sun, blinding himself. His eyes burn with more than the light swimming in his vision and he scrubs furiously at his face, breathing deep past the water in his lungs and heart and eyes. Fuck this, he tells himself. That kind of attitude has been pretty successful for him so far, and he sees no reason to abandon it now.

As the bright bulk of light disperses into little spots in his vision, Owen pushes himself. He takes all of his emotions and shoves them desperately into a box, kicking them to the back of his head. He locks it with sixteen deadbolts and ten padlocks, sealing it into the vault of his mind. One day, he’ll deal with it. For now, he steps out of the Delta-shaped hole in the building, only stopping for the briefest of moments to pick up a sickle claw. It’s all he has left of her. Sure, he has his memories, but they’re not enough. After all, what good have his memories ever done him?

Pain flashes through his chest, and the box shakes wildly in the vault. Owen growls, grits his teeth and shoves it down ruthlessly. Does what he’s always done. Ignores the blackened building where Echo was fucking incinerated and concentrates on the buildings themselves, watching for movement. Doesn’t linger on the patches of dried blood and piss that litter the street. Feels the crunch of who-knows-what under his boots but doesn’t stop to look.

He keeps moving.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick chapter upload before I start work. Tomorrow's will be longer!

The jungle sings.

Owen’s travelled the back roads of Jurassic World enough times to know the feel of the ten-inch deep pothole only a mile from the Rex paddock. The crunch of wood chips giving way to gravel under the tires of an SUV. The rumbling in his gut all the way from the Gallimimus enclosure all the way to the raptor paddock. The rattle of his bike frame as tiny stones kick up in his wake.

On foot, it’s a completely different world.

The trees tower over him like darkened lighthouses, keeping silent watch. They crowd in close to each other, children huddling in a storm, all along the back road. The open space only makes it more obvious – man has cut into the earth and removed her kidneys without bothering to leave a piece to regrow. Jurassic World is all manmade wonder and faux scenery. Nothing about it is real. But out here, walking down the open wound of the world, he is aware of nature’s jurisdiction. She has control of these back roads, of this vast jungle-covered island.

Tourists come to Jurassic World to feel insignificant. To be amazed, to be shocked, to be reminded of their place in this world. Jurassic World is a theme park, and as awe-inspiring as the dinosaurs are, the tourists were reassured by layers of glass and steel, even if Owen was not. Maybe if the world were shown this jungle, this wild patch of nature, they would not have been so arrogant. So assured in their safety. This tangle of vines and close-packed trees is _real_ , genuine.

But who was to say they wouldn’t ignore that too?

So used to the rumble the bike’s engine beneath him, Owen is edgy. The only times he travelled these roads, he had the protection of a vehicle. Honestly, he didn’t have the time to walk all the way to the raptor enclosure, and if he had his choice, he would hop in a vehicle instantly. If it weren’t a monumentally bad idea, of course.

_‘What the fuck are you doing, Grady?’_ He snaps at himself. ‘Every single moment you’re on this island is a monumentally bad idea.’

As many times as he’s tried in his life, he can’t really argue with himself. Owen is the kind of guy to admit he’s made a mistake, but he hates making them. His time as a dolphin trainer taught him to own his slip-ups and improve himself. In fact, his time as a dolphin trainer taught him a lot. As much as Owen likes to fool the rest of the world into thinking he’s some thick-headed idiot, he knows better. He does have a degree, after all, and you can’t survive in the Navy if you’re missing a brain. So yes, Owen’s made mistakes over the course of his life. He’ll just never admit the sheer volume of them.

If he dwells on all his failings, he’ll never take another step forward. It’s better to keep moving instead of getting bit in the ass. He learned that in basic.

He’s fucking stupid for being here, though. If he makes it out alive, Claire is going to roast him alive and eat his ass for dinner, even though it’s not the most delicious part of him. That woman might be the scariest person he’s ever met, even with Owen’s mum in the running. You don’t get to run a theme park filled with man-eating dinosaurs without being a little ruthless, he guesses. _Just like you don’t train raptors unless you’re a little crazy_ , his conscience helpfully informs him.

‘Thank you for the input,’ he replies, growling under his breath. If the tourists can’t learn their lessons, why is Owen so different?

The only argument he has is that he knows what he’s doing. It’s not, strictly speaking, true, and it’s not false either. Owen just knew he had to come back here. He’s always followed the pull of his chest. That niggling tug at his lungs and the magnetic lure in his heart: the constant push to _go_ ; to keep moving; to stay alive. Except he’s not just staying alive. He’s hunting a _velociraptor_ on an isolated island filled with roaming dinosaurs and completely alone. Because his instincts told him to. Holy Jesus, he may actually admit himself to a mental asylum if he survives this. His instincts have never led him astray before, but he’s willing to call this the first and last time and be done with it.

Something pulls hard at his chest, and it’s not that easy.

Gravel shifts beneath his boots. He keeps his footfalls as soft as possible, but it’s hard on the constantly moving stones and tough grit. Trees line the road, guiding his path. Mossy fallen branches and patches of grass peek out from between the trunks, daring him to come closer.

He stays in the middle of the road. Owen’s easier to see, black shirt stark against pale gravel, but dinosaurs don’t reply primarily on their vision. The tilt of Echo’s head and the tiny flare in her nostrils when she appears to be looking at him give her away. To a dinosaur, scent is more important than sight.

He’s gonna stay where the lingering stench of petrol engines and rubber masks his scent, thank you very much. If a dinosaur gets close enough to see him, he won’t have anywhere to hide, but if he goes into the jungle, he’s on their turf. Besides, no large prey lives near the back roads – there’s little reason for the Rex to come close enough to spot him.

All he needs to worry about is Blue. The thought hasn’t left his mind since he spotted Isla Nublar’s green shores from the helicopter: he doubts it’s going to go away now. The last time he saw her, she looked him in the eye and didn’t attack him, but who knows how things have changed. After years with Blue, Charlie, Delta, and Echo, they still betrayed him, leaping gleefully on the soldiers who’d been their allies less than thirty seconds before. Turned cold, hungry eyes on their alpha. The alpha who fed them and raised them, but was still human. As much as he likes to think he has a bond with his girls, there’s only so much instinct you can ignore. He’s always smelled human to them – he knows that. Saw it in Echo’s eyes when she was young and Delta’s occasional petulant snorts when he asked her to obey him. In the twitch of Charlie’s claws when he lets a hint of fear slip. It’s a precarious balance – always has been. He’s still human, prey-scent overlaid with the smell of _pack_. For years, it has been enough.

Had. Past tense.

The jungle is noisy, without the rumble of petrol engines to fill his ears. Small mammals call to each other, keening high and clear. The crunch of boots on gravel alerts them to his presence. The calls warn their kin of potential danger. Owen has no intention of harming some tiny creature – there’s not much point, really. Insects hiss all around him, striking up a symphony by pure accident.

A stroll through the forest 65 million years ago, indeed.

Owen’s lips twist wryly. He adjusts his pack and follows the road, watching the trees.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Longer chapter this time, as promised. Now might be the time to mention that the timeline of this story may be a little all over the place. Other than that, I'll leave you to figure it out.

Low murmuring and the crying of children jolt him awake.

His head gives a frankly _annoying_ throb, whiting out his vision. The light pierces through his skull, and he brings a hand up, covering his eyes. Spots swim over his closed lids, dragonflies on the surface of a black lake.

The ringing in his ears dulls to a low squeal, filtering in other sounds. There’s a group of people nearby, talking quietly amongst themselves. They’re talking about their children and loved ones at home, disbelief in their voices. He’s not awake enough to distinguish the source of their disbelief – the fact that Jurassic World was a retread of its predecessors, or that they are alive. Children are wailing, their voices echoing through the hangar and his skull. There’s the cry of a hungry baby, oh so normal, juxtaposed with the scream of a terrified toddler. A more mature voice roars in anguish, and Owen’s throat seizes on empty air. He pushes down the feeling of a raptor playing with his lungs and focuses on something else. On his other side, someone’s breath is hitching sporadically, as if they can’t get enough air. A loud, wet sniff follows one particularly strained breath, and Owen stops listening. Concentrates on the sting of his hands, palm burning as his eyelashes catch on newly-formed scabs. He slides his palm down his face, slow, and the light doesn’t stab at his brain so much. For that, he’s pitifully grateful.

Owen’s ribs ache as he pulls himself up. They sing, and he considers laying down to die quietly but decides against it. After all, surviving the Indominus Rex is ultimately pointless if he’s going to just sit here and give in to the pain. Ignoring the burn in his bone marrow as he forces his ribs and spine to cooperate, Owen finally manages to heave himself upright.

The hangar is bright around him, so he can’t have slept for long. Noise settles like a chilled blanket over his shoulders, and he’s not sure how he got to sleep in the first place. To his left, the sobbing continues, and he risks a glance. It’s a teenager, face buried in his hands. Tears and snot drip through his fingers but he obviously doesn’t notice. His shoulders are shaking, curving downward. Grief coats him, another layer of skin. Owen would know – he’s seen that look on himself one too many times. He’s alone, practically oozing onto the floor, blood matted into his hair and streaked on his arms. Owen wonders whose blood it is. His chest squeezes like a boa constrictor taking hold and he turns his eyes away. A few people in the vicinity have suspiciously clean faces and hands, and he doesn’t want to think about what that means.

Owen looks down at his own hands instead. His fingers are swollen red with cold. The middle finger of his right hand is fatter than the others, the tip bending slightly too far towards the outside of his hand. He landed wrong when the Indominus forced them from their cozy little merch-stand cover, ignoring the burst of pain as he stumbled, urging Zach and Gray forwards. Now, he can’t separate that pain from the stinging tingles crawling across his hands, over his gravel-scraped palms and split knuckles. Although he is pretty damn proud of the split knuckles – it was _really_ fucking satisfying to bury his fist in Vic Hoskins’ face. He just wishes he made a permanent mark there. In the end, Delta covered him on that front, and he’s eternally grateful he’ll never have to see that smug little shit again.

‘I hoped you would sleep longer,’ a voice says, close to his ear. His vision swims as he turns to face her, red hair and pale eyes swirling like a Van Gogh painting. Owen curls his fingers into his battered palms, lets the pain ground him. Claire’s face comes into focus, all sharp angles and tear-stained cheeks. She’s gorgeous, even with a smear of dirt following the line of her eyebrow. Claire is utterly filthy, clothing askew and heels ratty, emotions raw on her face, but somehow she’s still the same old Claire. Graceful and vicious and completely allowed to micromanage Owen whenever she wants. Through all this fucking mayhem, she still looks like she’s in control.

‘Wish I had,’ Owen replies. He tries, but his lips will only twitch in a terrible mimickery of a smile, and he settles for it. He was an officer in the Navy, for fuck’s sake. He should be better than this.

(His girls don’t belong in the human world, but they should be here as well.

He can’t always get what he wants.)

‘How’re Zach and Gray?’ he asks, because if he can’t have a family reunion, someone should.

The haunted look disappears from her eyes, and his chest is a little lighter for it. ‘Pretty good, all things considered,’ she says, just a hint of pride in her voice. ‘Karen took them to a hotel to get some proper sleep.’

‘Good,’ Owen sighs, swaying closer to her, drinking in her strength. ‘You?’

Claire hesitates, shuffles so she’s sitting in front of him. Their knees brush, and Owen pushes down the urge to blush like a fucking teenager. Her bare skin is warm on his ruined pants, seeping into his skin. ‘I don’t know. Owen…’ her voice wraps around his name with such care, planting another seed of emotion in his chest. He’s too raw, can’t put any of them into boxes, and hopes he can deal with them before he has to be Owen Grady, badass boyfriend, again. Claire’s expression is so tender, hands gentle as she slides her palm along his forearm. Her fingers slip into his shirt at the elbows, tucking into the warmth there and resting against the curve of his bicep. Her fingertips are smooth – missing the callouses he’s so used to feeling on his own – moving minutely against the tender skin she finds. She cradles his elbow like a baby bird in her palm, and suddenly he can’t breathe through the clench in his chest.

If a spark of desire lights in his gut, he doesn’t feel it beyond the ache in his bones. It’s disappointing and completely expected, even if its absence is weird. He’s so used to a little thrill shivering back and forth in his guts whenever Claire is around that he’s not sure what to do now it’s missing. Her touch throws him completely off-balance but he needs her skin on his own.

His bicep twitches sporadically and his eyes are probably giving him away, yet she keeps her hands on him.

‘Seven hundred and twenty two people died, Owen,’ she whispers. Her voice catches dangerously, water filling her eyes. ‘There were kids, Owen, a hundred kids –‘

He brings his ravaged palm to her face, fingers fitting into the line of her jaw. His thumb is sloppy and uncoordinated as he traces a spot just under her cheekbone. ‘Don’t, Claire,’ he begs, jaw trembling. ‘Don’t do this to yourself.’ _Don’t do this to me._

‘It’s my fault,’ she says, voice low. There’s no tears, no sobbing, just grief and hatred shining along the blue of her iris. ‘I should have –‘

‘It’s the lab’s fault,’ Owen growls, something burning hot and bright in his chest. His head pounds and his throat fills with the overflow. ‘It’s Simon Masrani’s fault for sacrificing those InGen soldiers; Vic Hoskins’ fault for thinking he could control wild animals. And it’s John Hammond’s fault for starting all this,’ he snarls, rage cracking like thunder through his chest, slipping between his teeth. ‘For thinking he could play god.’

Claire just smiles tiredly at him. One day, he’ll spend a week between their sheets, worshipping her every pore, to prove she can never be blamed for what happened with the Indominus. He’ll whisper it into her breasts and between her thighs and into the line of her ribcage until she believes him. For now, he just returns her smile, cradling her right palm in his left and trailing his fingers over her inner wrist.

‘I guess we’ve all been a little stupid,’ she says.

It startles a laugh out of him, forcing something past the lump in his throat. The amusement is mangled and wrong in his ears but it’s all he can muster.

She knows it too, leans in and holds his gaze, eyes and hands steady. ‘What about you? How are you holding up?’

He laughs again, emotions scrabbling uselessly at his ribs. ‘I’m fine,’ he replies, and smirks. Smirking is much easier than a real smile – he can hide his openness behind layers of sarcasm and mischief.

‘No, you’re not,’ Claire tells him, hand burning an imprint into his thigh. She digs her fingers into the sore muscle to prove her point. Pain zings along his nerves and into his pelvis, pooling around his hip. Breath skitters from between his parted lips. Claire’s fingers loosen and he slumps, spine aching with it. Her palm rubs sweetly along his thigh, soothing. ‘You’re not fine. Those raptors are – _were_ – under your care for years, Owen. Charlie and Delta and Echo were important to you,’ she murmurs, and even as he looks in her eyes, he can tell she doesn’t understand. ‘You raised them.’

Owen’s gut fills with something acidic and hungry. What the fuck would she know about his girls? Until yesterday, she looked at dinosaurs and saw them as figures on a ledger, numbers on the endless spreadsheet that is Jurassic World. It wasn’t until she stroked a dying Apatosaurus and saw the light flicker from her eyes that she realized they might be alive. What the fuck does she know about Charlie? She wasn’t there when Charlie stopped eating for a week, giving half of her food to Blue and storing the rest by the fence, keening pitifully for Owen to take it. She just wanted to make her alpha and beta happy, to keep them healthy, even though the lack of food wasn’t good for her. By the end of her seven-day stint, Owen could see the outline of her ribs; count the spaces between each one. Without her high calorie diet supporting the amount of exercise she got, she lost too much weight. Claire wasn’t there when Owen snuck back to the raptor paddock after hours and sat with Charlie, reaching through the bars to take handfuls of food, pretending to chew, and then feeding them to Charlie. He made pleased rumbles and fed her directly for two weeks before he trained her out of the habit.

Claire wasn’t there to see Echo challenge Blue for the beta position and lose. Didn’t see Echo’s muzzle split open, bleeding all over the wood-chipped ground. Didn’t hear her whines of submission as Blue towered over her. Didn’t feel the sharp twist of terror in her guts, or see the flashes of his failures. Owen’s terror was all that snapped Blue out of her blood-rage, he thinks. She turned sharply to him, nostrils blown wide, eyes fixed on her alpha as though he was an extra juicy snack. Owen stomped viciously on his fear, pushed it down into the depths of his mind-vault and commanded her to step away, shouting at someone to _just call the fucking vet already_. He stayed with Echo through the stitching up of her muzzle and the setting of her dislocated jaw. Desperately hoped infection wouldn’t set in and catch in her blood. He got lucky when all she experienced was intense itching while the skin knitted back together. Rolling around on the ground never seemed to fix the problem, so she took to using her claws. Owen snapped her out of it with harsh words and sharp gestures, loading her into the box. There, he rubbed soothing antiseptic cream into her muzzle and scratched the skin around the wound, enjoying the drooping of her eyelids. She let out the tiniest of sighs as he massaged gentle thumbs into the abused muscles of her jaw. Owen grounded himself in the feel of her sleek skin, projecting calm to her. He’d lost so many before, but he hadn’t lost her.

And Delta –

Owen turns his face to the side, clenching his eyes shut so tightly pain explodes into his skull. His eyes ache, heavy in their sockets. The world continues to turn underneath his feet but everything’s changed. His chest shrinks and tightens, swallowed up by the vastness the girls have left inside of him. Blood pumps sluggishly through his veins, like his body doesn’t remember how to function without them to regulate it, and he knows it’s not supposed to be this way. Knows he shouldn’t have hollow kidneys, shouldn’t feel acid dripping from a hole in his stomach onto his intestines. Shouldn’t want to rip his own lungs out to stop the million conflicting snippets of information his nerves are sending him. His spine is liquid and his legs ache. He just swallows everything, all of it. Shoves all those fucking useless emotions back into his chest – if he can’t put them in his vault, he can at least make them less visible.

‘I’m okay,’ he tells her, voice rough. It’s the biggest fucking lie in the history of lies, but he’s never going to admit it. Can’t really put any of into words, anyway.

Claire puts a hand on his face, forces him to meet her eyes. ‘Owen –‘

‘C’mon,’ Owen smirks, standing up stiffly and stretching out his muscles. ‘They’re going to need us for the cleanup. Also, I need a shower.’

His declaration puts a smile on her face and a laugh in her belly. Light fills her eyes as she threads her arm through his, leading him to the hangar door. ‘Since we’re sticking together,’ she begins, a sly note in her voice, ‘I guess you get to share my hotel room.’

‘Sticking together is looking like a pretty good decision.’

Claire pretends he doesn’t flinch when daylight hits the back of his eyes. ‘And when we’ve had that shower, we can sleep.’

‘For a week,’ Owen agrees, and his ribs ache, his throat burns, but he’s still here.

Still here.


	4. Chapter 4

He makes camp in the jungle, not that he has much choice.

Owen doesn’t stray too far from the back road but he doesn’t sleep there either. He has two options: make camp on the road, or make camp in the jungle. Gravel is a bitch on his back and as safe as the road is in the day, it’s too open at night. So he ducks between the trees to his left, shuffling through close-packed trunks. Moss and rotting branches sink like sponge beneath his feet, leaving green residue on his boots. Dying light dapples through the canopy, but it’s still three times darker here. If it weren’t for the occasional feel of a patch of sun on his face, he’d think it was nighttime already.

Owen keeps his center of gravity low, knees bent. His eyes range restlessly over the foliage, watching closely. A branch shifts here, a leaf moves there, but it’s just those small mammals moving around. They’re silent now, terrified of him, and he pays them no mind. He’s too busy looking for something bigger: something much more deadly. (Or checking whether she’s looking for him.)

The light is truly dying now. Red streaks spear down through the canopy, little poles of light. Dust particles and plant seeds dance through them and swirl away coyly.

The world is preparing to sleep, or to awaken. He’s not sure which.

Luckily, he’s not far from the road when he finds the shelter he needs. It’s not fantastic – little more than a hole in the ground, actually – but it’s the best protection he has. Plus, he’s slept in worse places. Like any infirmary ever, for example, or domestic flights. At least he’ll be able to lie down. He counts that as a win.

Owen tucks his pack into the roots, stretching out his shoulders. The muscles pull and clench tenderly and he holds back a wince. At least he can breathe now. His ribs have recovered as much as they ever will, and he doesn’t know what he’ll do if the ache never goes away. It’s hard enough to handle all of this shit without the weight of Delta’s dead eyes and Charlie’s furious face shoving him into the dirt. Hard enough to put one foot in front of the other, even before they died. He gave up his life and his work in the Navy to live on an island training velociraptors, for fuck’s sake. If that doesn’t make him certifiably broken, he’s not sure what does. But he smiles and laughs, plays dumb for his friends and dumber for his boss. Lies to himself and to everyone he’s ever cared about, here. Pretends he’s okay with the people that surround the raptor paddock when all he wants to do is sit with his girls and feel the scrape of their skin against his palm. Tries to tell himself that Claire Dearing thinks he’s a slob because he is, and not because he made her think that.

He peers into his shelter for the night. It’s dark and relatively warm, a little damp. The topsoil has been washed away by last season’s flash floods, exposing the root network beneath. The trunk is spindly but long, and the roots are huge and sturdy by comparison. They rise out of the ground, strong and proud, holding up the tree. Only one side of the shelter is open, the other still guarded by a thick layer of intertwined soil and roots, and it’s the best he can do.

Bringing a tent would be a stupid idea. Aside from the obvious issue in the form of flimsy, easy-tear material, the tent is obviously manmade. If _Owen_ reels back from the stench of tightly packed plastic and tarpaulin, then the dinos would smell it for miles. He’s not stupid enough to sleep in a dinosaur beacon, no matter how crazy he is. Besides, the wind often picks up at night on Isla Nublar, and tents flap like there’s no tomorrow. He’d listened to a few of the survival courses the Navy forced on him, thank you very much. He does remember most of the tips they gave him. Of course, they weren’t anticipating one of their own ending up on an island full of dinosaurs. His drill sergeant would shake his head in disbelief, then proceed to kick Owen’s ass into next year.

Owen squeezes into the space between the roots, barely managing to tuck his shoulders in close enough. It’s a tight fit, but once he’s in the space, it’s not so bad. The tree roots brush the top of his head when he sits up, yet there’s plenty of room to curl up and sleep. He presses his back to the wall of soil and roots, watching the light die through the bars of his protective cage. At least he’s far enough away from the opening that even if Blue finds him, she won’t be able to reach him. Hopefully the overpowering reek of wet soil and rotting wood will hide his scent for the night.

Digging into the front pocket of his pack, Owen’s fingers close on a glow stick. He has a torch – of course he does – but using it right now is pointless. The brightness will destroy any low-light sensitivity he’s built up and alert predators to his presence. On Isla Nublar, that’s an extremely fucking bad idea.

The glow stick emits very low light, enough to see his hands by, and that’s all he needs. Plus, it’s easy to shove it in his pack and wait for the glow to die down, and he doesn’t need to worry about batteries. He places the glow stick by his crossed legs and digs through the pack. He emerges with a sandwich and an apple. He’s not stupid – hasn’t brought meat to an island now ruled by 65-million-year-old predators. As much as he could really do with a fat, juicy steak right now, he would rather not commit suicide by T-Rex. She has a keen nose, and he’s prey enough already. Even a few slices of salami would act as a siren call, bringing her straight to him. Owen has his fair share of dinosaur bites and scratches, but he can’t survive a personal encounter with the jaws of a T-Rex, no matter how strong he is.

So he settles for a peanut butter sandwich, scoffing it down as quickly as possible. Washes the dryness from his mouth with a careful mouthful from his canteen; doesn’t waste a drop. The apple is sweet and juicy on his tongue, and he’s glad he didn’t eat it earlier. Couldn’t, really, not with the wild churning of his stomach and the need to keep his eyes on the forest.

Now, he settles in, tucking a blanket around his shoulders and shuffling so his back fits into the curve of the soil wall and tucking the glow stick into his pack. Silver moonlight limns the leaves and branches as they whip in the crosswind outside his shelter. The calls of dinosaurs echo through the jungle, the Apatosaurus keeping tabs on each other. The sound is calming, familiar, and he closes his eyes.

Hopes he doesn’t dream of Delta’s mangled leg or Echo’s charred skin or Charlie’s hungry eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you've all brought your comfy blankets. Only 4 scenes have been posted and I've planned out a further 20, so this story is going to be possibly the longest I've ever written.


	5. Chapter 5

The morning is hot and sticky.

It’s early, the pale blue of sunrise only just giving way to the bright aqua of day. The whisper of claws on dense foliage heralds the awakening of the regularly sized lizards. Loud, protracted calls signal the awakening of the overgrown lizards, and the thought puts a smile on his face. A reverberating warble carries over the canopy, bouncing off of tree trunks. Another rings out after it, lower in tone and shorter in length. The call is echoed by others, and they join in a chorus of dinosaurs, harmonizing seamlessly.

It’s so easy, uncomplicated, that it puts a smile on Owen’s face. He’s toured Jurassic World, knows all the dinosaurs under the park’s care. No other dinosaur can make as much noise as a Parasaurolophus, no matter their size. The Paras aren’t the largest herbivores in Jurassic World, but they are the most vocal. Normally, Owen would hate the sheer amount of noise they make. If the T-Rex, Triceratops or Gallimimus were so vocal, he’d have to find some way to shut them up. There’s just something different about the Paras – about the way they always stick close together, keeping a warbling sentinel on guard for danger. And Owen’s never seen them reject a new member of the herd. He’s only ever seen them come closer, rubbing their massive sides together in a show of loyalty. The Stegosaurus are grumpy old men, always wanting to be alone. The Triceratops are angst-ridden teenagers, always clustering together out of necessity and collectively hating the outside world. The Suchomimus are the jocks of the Cretaceous Cruise, all size and claws and teeth, picking on the Stegosaurus like it’s a particularly entertaining prank. By comparison, the Apatosaurus are the chilled out siblings, supervising the Gyrospheres. The Apatosaurus keep an eye out for danger; the Parasaurolophus relay messages; the Stegosaurus and Triceratops provide defense. In all, they’ve got a sound strategy. Owen scoffs at anyone who says dinosaurs are mindless animals.

It couldn’t be more obvious that they’re wrong. How could a mindless animal sing as beautifully as this? The Parasaurolophus come together, voices twining like vines, weaving through each other. The long horn on each Para’s head is unique, and every time someone pauses to take a breath, another takes their place, slotting into a different place. He’s heard their songs for years, of course, but it’s not quite the same this time. Now, there’s no murmur of tourists to drown out the shyest Paras and no rattle of vehicles to provide percussion. Even the Apatosaurus are quiet. Owen’s breath catches in his chest. He freezes in the middle of throwing the blanket from his shoulders. It won’t matter if he does move, won’t break the moment, but it feels wrong to interrupt this with the trivial rustling of fabric on fabric. He’s too far away for the Paras to even know he’s there, yet the island has stopped for them, so Owen does too. The Parasaurolophus take center stage, voices rising like mountains from the murky sea. They are cold air in his lungs and heat packs on his ribs. They are vast open space and cozy living rooms and shivers down his spine.

And they sound happy.

It’s so fucking odd. The taste of it sits like rotten fruit at the back of his throat, clogging his lungs. Liquid metal churns in his stomach, eating him from the inside out. They have no fucking _right_ to be _happy_. No right. Owen and his girls did all the goddamn work, and what were they left with? A family torn apart by death and difference. Ripped open by the Indominus Rex and repaired with shitty needlework and clawed fingers. Whoever said it was okay to let his guard down, to let Blue and Charlie and Echo and Delta slice their way into his heart and dig themselves a nest, was fucking _wrong_. When his mum taught him to do the right thing, to stand up to the bully, she was wrong. When the Navy told him to stop being a pussy, they were wrong too. And Owen had been the stupidest of them all when he promised himself he wouldn’t get attached. That he wouldn’t be calmed by their presence. That he would ignore the feeling of _home_. That he wouldn’t see the glint of warmth in Blue’s eyes and mischief in Delta’s. That he wouldn’t soothe Echo’s displaced jaw once it healed and he would stop hand-feeding Charlie. That he wouldn’t make a mistake twice.

And he was so, so wrong.

So, so, so wrong. Shit –

Something snaps inside him, something sitting low in his gut, spilling toxins into his bloodstream. The Parasauralophus are still singing, happy. They sing for the family members they could have lost but didn’t and the bodies they saw but didn’t feel torn away like the rip of their own skin. They didn’t lose everything. Owen knows what it feels like, has always known, but some fucking _infuriating_ higher power keeps yanking happiness just out of his reach, bringing it close enough for him to glimpse a glorious future. A future that isn’t his anymore, because that future had Charlie’s generosity and Delta’s wariness and Echo’s childishness.

The Parasaurolophus sing, as if the world hasn’t tilted beneath them. As though they can’t feel the crack opening in the Earth to swallow Owen whole. The trembling in his arms could shake a nation, and his throat is the Sahara. Owen splits apart, spilling his guts onto the damp forest floor, and he’s not sure in which order to replace them. He’s surrounded by life, by the insects crawling along the jungle floor and the mammals in their burrows and the snakes in the trees, but it doesn’t fucking matter. His family is gone, now. A blow slams home in his sternum and he welcomes the pain, welcomes the lump in his throat and the ache in his vocal folds. Remembers this feeling from when he watched his unit steer too far to the right. When he picked up his CO’s hand but never managed to find the rest of him. When all he could do was sit and watch, because Owen Grady The Dolphin Trainer had already outlived his usefulness. A tangled mess of emotion claws viciously at his breastbone. He can’t shove it into a box this time – it’s raw, primal force, waging war on his insides. It is thunder and lightning and rain and clouds stained with the black of his pointlessness.

He’s absolutely no use with eyes this blurry and a nose this blocked. He digs his elbows into his outstretched legs and inspects his barely-healed hands, watching them swim in and out of focus with a detached sort of fascination that would be worrying if he could bring himself to care. Rock builds in his chest, trying to force its way out, and he crumbles in its wake. It feels like raptor claws have circled his throat, and he wishes they tore his heart out instead of leaving him to bleed like this.

It should have been him.

Fuck. _It should have been me_.

The symphony rings through the jungle, which means he’s closer than he thought. He should get up. He should follow the road. He should do what he came for. Owen is close to the paddock now. Close to the memory of them, but he’s not sure that’s changed. It doesn’t matter – he’s near the border of the restricted area now, and he doesn’t really have time to fuck around.

Owen Grady sits. He doesn’t sob and he doesn’t wail. He just fights the storm in his chest with a kite. He spirals wildly in the wind.

He doesn’t move a muscle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a comment if you're enjoying! Don't be shy. I love replying to anyone that takes the time to do so!


	6. Chapter 6

When Owen turns six-and-three-quarters, he sees his first house fire.

Nose burning and throat scratchy, he drifts into awareness. His room is hazy, like he’s staring at a distant mountain through the windshield of dad’s car. It’s exactly like the time Owen locked himself in the bathroom, twisting all the knobs in the shower just to see what they did. The tiles were slippery on his socked feet as he twisted the controls, not entirely sure what was going to happen. He didn’t really expect water to come raining down on him, soaking right through his pajamas and into the bone. The cold sent a vicious shiver up from his toes and into his teeth. They chattered against each other like drums and he fought for grip on the tiled floor, socks sticking and sliding haphazardly. The water was so cold on his head it was like getting brain freeze, and he turned the knob that was like the kitchen sink – the knob with a H on it. The water heated immediately and he grinned, opened his mouth to catch the waterfall. He doesn’t know why he didn’t expect it to suddenly get hot, burning over his skin like the rash he had the month before, but it did. White fog rose all around him, clinging to the glass and blanketing everything in sight. He doesn’t really remember much, after stumbling back from the intense heat and hitting his head on the glass wall. To this day, he’s still proud of the spider-web crack he made.

Owen isn’t really sure why this steam catches at the back of his throat and makes his chest hurt, but he gets out of bed to ask mum and dad anyway. He coughs and stumbles his way to the door, tripping over the toys he swore he’d put away and never got around to. Maybe he’ll start packing up his stuff from now on. Just in case he can’t see his floor again.

A sharp LEGO block bites into his foot as he finally pulls the door open. He cries out at the sudden jolt of pain in his system, zinging up his leg as he shakes his foot around and whimpers, eyes filling with water. He thinks the air is clearer out in the hallway, but his eyes are useless and his throat closes tight around the pain running laps up his spin.

A familiar voice wraps around him like a blanket, and the strong arms that follow are like a guard dog. His dad is here, and everything is okay now, so he lets his chest heave and his throat constrict, because daddy always says crying is okay and he can still be a man if he cries. Mummy says only the best men cry, and Owen is her best man.

(‘Isn’t daddy your bestest man?’ Owen asks, voice tiny.

Mum leans in close, whispers in his ear, ‘he would be, but he never eats his broccoli, and my bestest man always eats his broccoli,’ and tickles him until he’s laughing so hard he can’t squirm anymore.)

Now mum kneels next to him, hands on his ribs even though she’s not tickling. Owen doesn’t really remember how he got out of the house and across the street, but his dad’s hands are on his shoulders and his mum is smiling worriedly at him, so it probably doesn’t matter. They are all here, and they’re okay.

The house next to Owen’s is orange. He’s seen fire before – the three of them went camping last year and huddled around a little cooking fire, trying and failing to toast bread without burning it – but he’s never seen it this big. Huge spikes of fire shoot into the sky, reaching towards the stars. There are so many different oranges flickering around, shifting until Owen’s not sure what colour it really is. A bit of blue peeks through occasionally, and he wonders what that means. It doesn’t really seem like a good thing, but the house is on fire so it seems pretty minor by comparison.

People in yellow and grey suits are buzzing around the house like ants, getting to close to the fire. They spray it with water, and he watches as they tame it. The fire retreats like a dog, tail tucked between his legs, dying down gradually. The house steams and it looks just like the turkey his mum burned at Thanksgiving dinner, all black and inedible. The men-in-yellow-suits stood up to the huge octopus arms of the fire and came out unharmed, and that’s so cool. His dad takes him to thank the firefighters once it’s safe, and one of them crouches down, looking very sore as he does it, and shakes the hand he offers. ‘I want to be a firefighter!’ Owen blurts, overjoyed. The firefighter just laughs and says, ‘I’ll expect to see you in fifteen years.’

And that’s all well and good, except when Owen turns eight, his dad takes him to the air show. It’s fantastic, with all the planes zooming low over the airstrip and leaving trails high in the sky. His dad tells him all about the old planes. Tells him about how they used to be made of wood and canvas and now they’re made of carbon fiber and aluminum. About the planes used in World War I and II and the first passenger planes. Owen asks more and more questions, eyes fixed hungrily on the body of an old Spitfire, and decides he wants to be a pilot.

When Owen turns eleven, his mum takes him to an observatory. They spend an hour driving to the research station and Owen watches the sunset through the window of the car. Navy blue is filling the sky by the time they get to the observatory, and it’s completely dark when Owen sees the telescope. It’s huge, pointing up at the sky like a giant version of Owen, tall and proud and solid. Out in the middle of nowhere, this telescope belongs, even though it’s not like anything else around it. He looks through the telescope, the universe open before him. His mum tells him about the stars, points out Alpha Centauri, and says they’re the closest. His mum’s voice is quiet in his ear, filled with wonder, and Owen knows he’ll visit the stars one day.

When Owen turns fifteen, his uncle brings home a tiny little bundle. It’s nothing more than a sack of bones and fur squirming beneath a blanket. Yet, Owen can’t stay away. He takes the pitiful thing to the couch and opens the blanket cocoon, revealing a pair of chocolate brown eyes staring hopelessly at him. The creature looks so utterly alone that Owen strokes careful fingers over the short yellow fur at the top of her head. He tells her, ‘you’re okay now, you’re safe,’ and he believes it. The dog stops trembling under his hands, snuggling into his warmth and his touch, and he smiles.

‘I want to be an animal trainer,’ he tells Uncle Evan, who’s watching him with a stupid smile on his face.

It sticks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have a break from the feels. (And prepare for the next chapter.)


	7. Chapter 7

He takes another shower the next day, just for the hell of it.

The water is warm on his skin, catching on the scrapes down his back and legs. A million tiny needles prick into his skin, twisting viciously. It’s nothing new. Water pools at his aching feet, seeping into the tender soles, and that’s not new either. Even the feel of liquid cascading over the divots of his bruised ribs is familiar. Owen should probably see a doctor about that. In fact, he should probably see a doctor about his growing list of problems, both physical and mental. His throat hasn’t opened properly since three days ago, before he knew the Indominus Rex existed, when his world hadn’t been fucked and left like a two-dollar whore. A lung might be punctured, because he can’t breathe properly. In the quiet intimacy of the shower, the drum of water against his skin, his respiratory system catches on every few breaths. He doesn’t know if the ache spreading from his the base of his ribs to his pelvis is stomach acid spilling into his guts.

His mum and dad always taught him that crying was okay. Owen wishes he could still think like that, but it’s been too long. Crying distresses his animals, makes them restless. The Navy beat the rest out of him.

He’s only cried in front of his pack once, when his dad called on a Wednesday afternoon – on Raptor Day, his favourite day, and if that wasn’t a dead giveaway, he doesn’t know what is. Owen remembers the sound of Bon Jovi’s _Wanted Dead or Alive_ in his ears and the feel of the cool bars against his singlet-clad back as he slid to the ground. Remembers the horrible chasm in his chest, a huge arm emerging to pull him in, and the anchor of Echo’s bewildered scratching over his shoulders, the pool of blood at his elbow and Blue’s growling hiding her true distress. Remembered Delta’s eyes fixing on her alpha-turned-prey and Charlie stepping up to block Owen’s blurred view of her, fighting for Owen even with the scent of prey exuding from his very pores. He just choked a strangled, ‘what?’ into the phone.

‘ _Uncle Evan is dead, buddy_ ,’ his dad replied, tears in his voice and weariness in his sigh. ‘ _I’m sorry_.’

Owen’s shoulder throbbed, Echo’s claws tearing him open as surely as his dad’s words did. Something broke inside of him, and his chest heaved, lungs threatening to crawl out through the gaps in his ribs and never return. Owen sat, surrounded by distressed, snarling raptors, and promised himself he’d never cry again, not in front of his pack.

(He changed his ring tone, after that.)

And he broke his promise, thanks to Blue, Charlie, Delta, and Echo.

His girls aren’t here. They can’t see the water on his cheeks before he turns his face to the spray, closing his eyes. It doesn’t matter, though. He’s spent years undoing the teachings of his parents, and as much as he wishes he could turn it back, he can’t. Only now does he realize how wise his parents were. And ain’t that fucking ironic. That the most important lesson they ever taught him, the lesson he always scoffed at, ended up being the one he wishes he’d heeded.

How the mighty have fallen.

Water sluices down his face, sliding over the hollow of his throat and the dip of his collarbone before spilling onto his torso like fresh blood. He pulls back, wipes his hands over his eyes, and looks down. He expects the water to be shot through with red, swirling around the drain in a reenactment of _Psycho_ , but it’s just regular water. Even the layers of grime that streaked his skin are gone. Owen soaps his torso again, relishing the visceral sting of soap in his grazes, just to make sure he’s clean. It feels like the dirt is growing from inside of him, weeds pushing out of his pores. His hands are so heavy. They are being drawn in to the center of the Earth, weighed down by the stains of Delta’s blood on his skin and Echo and Charlie’s ashes slipping through his fingers. The tender skin of his hip itches under the soap bar and he lifts his hands away, washing the suds off. The air is cool on his skin as he twists the knobs into the _off_ position and he wraps a huge, fluffy towel around himself, warding off the chill. His hair is still dripping onto his sore shoulders when he deems himself dry enough, slipping on a pair of boxers and leaving the towel in a heap on the bathroom floor. Claire’s probably going to hate it, but he doesn’t have any fucks left to give. He’s given everything he has and come up empty – he doesn’t think a towel is worth the effort now.

Steam swirls into the bedroom when he emerges from the ensuite. Light catches in the billowing clouds, but it doesn’t draw his eye. No, his eyes are on Claire, watching as she straightens from the book she’s reading, perching gracefully on the end of the bed. Even in a pair of loose cotton shorts and a white singlet, she’s still formidable. She’s wearing _knee socks_ , as if she’s only allowed to have a certain amount of leg showing at any given time, and it’s as frustrating as it is tempting.

Owen expects her to quirk a smile at him as he takes a step closer. He doesn’t expect her to watch him, eyes intense and focused like lasers on him. Doesn’t expect her to beckon him closer, sitting him down closely enough to feel the warmth radiating from her. Doesn’t expect her to cup his pectoral, spreading her fingers over his ribs and thumbing a nipple. Also doesn’t expect pleasure to zing down to his groin so instantly. But then, Claire, for all her schedules and time sheets, has never been predictable.

Owen holds her pale gaze, watching her as carefully as he watches his girls. He slides his hand up her thigh, touches the skin above her socks, but he doesn't go any further. As much as he'd like to, it would be pushing things. This has all gone pretty fucking fast for his tastes. Sure, he's taken plenty of women to his bed, shown them the place where his thigh meets his hip and the scar dotted along the line of his pelvis. Claire will see that some time, he's sure of it. But now, he just caresses with clumsy fingers and scratchy palms, content. He doesn't want to rush this. He has the feeling they're going to _be_ something, and Owen is sick of the emptiness of physical sex. He's sick of his own stupid mistakes – for allowing himself to let the best women in his life slip through his fingers. He can't do it anymore. So he just sits with Claire, because she doesn't deserve his idiocy. And he doesn't deserve her at all, really. Owen takes what he can get.

He doesn't want to fuck this up with sex, but he can't resist the slide of skin beneath his fingertips. She's wearing the most adorable knee socks he's ever seen, in a soft purple like the grimy undershirt laying on the hotel armchair. They're knitted so finely that the fabric slides across his fingers like a cat's fur, soft and sleek. The purple is gentle next to his red, twisted fingers. Just above her knee, wool yields to skin. Her thighs are silky, the colour of ivory piano keys, and he plays her skin like Mozart. Hard muscle shivers under his palm, deliciously enticing. No matter the softness of her skin, she is the same Claire as always. His fingers itch to pull back her layers, unzip the suits she places over herself, and feel the core of her. To move past all her bullshit and see what she really is. Even now, she is still intact. This incident will be a mere dent in the iron core of her, leaving nothing but a once painful mark. A reminder of the past. An indication of a distant mistake, and nothing more. She will move on from this clusterfuck with an even fierier attitude, if that's even possible. There are so many things he doubts right now, so many things he'll never know for certain, but he doesn't doubt that.

He leans in. Her lips are supple and talented against his own, but neither of them deepen the kiss. They slide apart, and he doesn’t feel bereft. Owen just lets the warmth of her hand slice through his skin and into his chest. He lets the tingle of pleasure weather the tangled mess inside of him, a temporary balm.

Claire’s lips quirk as he pulls away, and that’s the woman he recognises. Owen grins back at her, and it doesn’t feel like a bold-faced lie. The stretch of his cheeks isn’t really _right,_ but it’s not wrong either. He settles for it anyway, and from the look on Claire’s face, he’s not fooling anyone.

‘How are you doing, Owen?’ Claire asks him, seeing through to his very soul. ‘And don’t try to bullshit me.’

Owen’s laugh is little more than a burst of breath. ‘Me?’

‘You can’t fool me,’ she says, voice stern and eyes steady.

Owen takes a deep breath. ‘No,’ he exhales quietly. ‘I can’t. It’s nothing I haven’t done before,’ he tells her, and it’s not a lie.

To her credit, Claire doesn’t even flinch. She just takes the information in her stride. Even though he wasn’t under her jurisdiction at Jurassic World, she’s read his file. Knows where he comes from. ‘Not in combat, though,’ she says, and it’s almost a question. If it weren’t Claire, it would be.

‘Yeah,’ Owen replies, the word rough in his chest. His oesophagus seizes around it, as though it doesn’t know how to process the connotations. ‘Orders are orders,’ he says, simply. And really, it is that simple. It’s how the military works – some guy who’ll never have to deal with the consequences gives you a bullshit order and you obey. ‘We all lost people,’ he says, because he doesn’t want this to be about him. (And he lost more than a human being. He lost his girls. He keeps fucking up, and he’s not sure when he’s going to stop.)

Claire’s eyes narrow, not letting him escape that easily. ‘That’s what they all say.’

He shrugs. ‘It’s true.’

‘When will you start trusting me, Owen Grady?’ her eyes see through to his very soul.

‘I do trust you,’ he rushes to reassure her. ‘I just – I can’t –‘ Owen breaks off before he makes a bigger fool of himself. ‘If I stop now,’ he says, words slow and carefully enunciated, ‘I’ll never get up again. Surely you, of all people, can understand.’

‘I do,’ Claire replies, and it’s in her eyes and in the slump of her shoulders and the steel of her voice.

They’re all a little broken, here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter marks a total of 100,000 words on this page. Thank you to everyone who keeps coming back, to everyone who has commented or left kudos, and to those who have subscribed. 
> 
> Don't worry - I'm not stopping any time soon! There will be much more where this came from. Let's just hope the rest is equally as good.


	8. Chapter 8

Owen’s road takes him past the back of the herbivore paddocks.

The gravel winds around the back of Gallimimus Valley, swerving up to the raptor paddock just before the thick iron bars of the Triceratops Territory. Gallimimus Valley opens before him like his mother’s arms, warm and familiar. The roiling sea of green is broken only by the lithe bipeds wandering across its surface. The Gallimimus usually crowd closer together, finding safety in numbers. Yet they’re scattered all over the place as if they’ve been stuck in a car too long and desperately need some time apart. Owen’s intimately familiar with the sentiment. His parents were awfully fond of road trips and seemed to delight in dragging teenaged Owen to the middle of fucking nowhere. Then they had the nerve to interrupt his fitful napping to wake him up at the ass crack of dawn and point out the five hundredth cow in as many seconds. Owen loves his parents – always will – but taking a testosterone-fueled fourteen-year-old on a three-week road trip was not one of their best ideas.

To tell them just how stupid they were, he spent a further three weeks in silent protest, locking himself in his room and enjoying nothing but his own company (and disgusting amounts of junk food). The silence and the junk food helped erode the stone ball of frustration in his stomach. When he emerged, he promised he’d never do it again if they swore not to torture him like that.

The Gallimimus look how Owen felt.

They’re dotted over the flat plain, lounging contentedly, heads titled toward the sun. But as he watches, a youngster approaches her herd-mate. She’s not bouncing excitedly – not even remotely energetic. She just seems to want company, and it’s in the way she stretches her large beak towards her companion, slow and unhurried. The older female screeches in her face and gets up, pacing away testily.

The entire herd is populating their own little patches of the Valley. Owen scans the trees for the usual hoard of Gallimimus picking the vines from the trees, but there’s a gaping hole where the dinosaurs should be. The long grass dotting the threshold to the banquet table sways gently in the rising breeze when it should be flattened beneath the crush of feet. The lack of movement in the Valley sparks something in his chest. Owen expects to see the Gallimimus bustling around as they always do. The Gallimimus have always operated on their own wavelength, with their own hidden agenda. Now, there’s nothing. It’s like they’ve given up. Like they don’t need to do anything today. It’s their first day off since the moment they hatched, and the thought makes Owen’s lips quirk and ribs ache dully. Stones squirm awkwardly in his guts, the cradle of his pelvis sending them back into his organs like some deranged pinball machine. The sight of the Valley should be completely innocuous, but it isn’t. Raptor claws scratch gently at the inside of his ribs, scoring along the bone and leaving barely discernable marks.

The Gallimimus are all frantic movement and constant wariness, but they’re still. Maybe they’re glad to be spared the rumble of petrol engines and the constant stream of toursists. Maybe they knew the Indominus was there from the beginning. Maybe they’re just content to have suffered no casualties, like so many other dinosaurs on the fucking island. Owen swears the Indominus never so much as sniffed as Gallimimus Valley, barely even glanced at the Triceratops. She killed the Apatosaurus because they were _easy_ – they were _there._ She killed the ankylosaur to prove her worth. To feel that heady rush of power and to stick it to The Man, as played by Simon Masrani and Jurassic World. She ruined the island – that’s not in question. But she left so much untouched, so many dinosaurs unharmed. In the grand scheme of things, and certainly in comparison to Jurassic Park, she didn’t actually fuck everything up. As horrible as it is, Owen’s familiar with the concept. If the island wasn’t run by the most incompetent human beings to ever steal oxygen, only a couple of people would have died. Only a few dinosaurs would have died. No kids would have been left without their parents. Only a few news stations would have been interested. Simon Masrani could have made up for his failings.

His girls would still be here.

There are many shades of ruination. Owen knows that more than anyone.

He turns away, following the path. A pear is cradled in his palm, cool on his healing skin. The green skin is marred by little pockmarks and black slashes but it’s still edible. Plus, nothing in life is perfect. Owen gets really suspicious when it is. After all, the poisoned fruit always looks the juiciest.

Flavor bursts onto his tongue, thick and sweet. Soft flesh slides around his mouth, syrupy smooth. He hums contentedly as the sugar coats his tongue, knows it’ll hit his bloodstream soon.

The road takes a sudden turn to the right, and he follows it, turning the familiar corner.

Low rumbling greets him, sending him back a few steps. Owen wrangles his feet to a stop as the dinosaur spots him, swiveling her massive head. She’s as tall as Owen but five times as long, built like a brick shithouse. And she fixes her tiny eyes on him, tail whooshing through the air.

The ankylosaurus takes a heavy step toward him, calling warily. She remembers humans, remembers how tiny they are, how breakable. She knows Owen poses no threat – even the T-Rex poses no threat to her. She just watches him, eyes set deep in her face and glinting like the amber she came from.

Owen understands quick movements and bird-like head tilts, not the unmoving solidity of a mountain. The ankylosaur is not inclined to deal with his shit, but she’s too lazy to warn him off. Blue’s like that sometimes, when the sun is too warm on her back and it hasn’t rained for two weeks. When she seeks out the shade inexorably, curling up under every available shelter and flexing her claws at her sisters should they dare to approach. The memory of her curling up under the shade of the paddock perimeter and his own shadow is like a warm mug of cocoa in his hands and a foot in his balls. His hands tingle with the sense-memory of her skin, the feel of her blue stripes beneath his fingers. How he always itched to touch her, and the needles in his palms are dangerously familiar.

He has no urge to touch the ankylosaur. She’s like a fucking prehistoric tank, all plated armor and low-slung torso, keeping her attacks where they matter. A huge row of spikes march down her sides and back, meeting with her clubbed tail. There’s even a spike protruding from her fucking _cheek_ of all things, and Owen really doesn’t want to mess with her. He wants to continue on his merry way, thank you very much, but she’s taken up a post in the middle of the road, and he can hear her friends meandering through the forest around them.

Owen doesn’t really know what he’s doing, when he approaches her, keeping his center of gravity low and legs tensed to run. The pack is heavy on his back, and suddenly he’s hyper-aware of the gun strapped to his thigh, to the fact that he removed it from his pack this morning and loaded the pistol, knowing he’d be close to the raptor paddock. Knowing that a pistol probably wouldn’t do much, other than alert the Rex to his presence. But he has no other defenses, and he’s spent most of his life with a gun strapped to his thigh, so he carries it anyway, because it’s the only thing that hasn’t changed. It’s just metal, after all.

The ankylosaur doesn’t even shift as he comes within arm’s reach. Only blinks carefully at him, completely un-amused. Owen’s no threat to her, and she knows it. He chants it in his head, _believes_ it, and he rips apart the panic in his chest, replacing it with calm certainty. They will both emerge unharmed. They will walk away without aggression and return to their day.

She snorts, bathing his hand in warm air, and grunts softly at him, questioning. She still hasn’t so much as moved her head, and Owen grins wryly, thrown. The ankylosaur is a peaceful herbivore, but he can’t read her. Doesn’t understand what’s going on in her head as surely as she doesn’t understand his.

Owen holds his hand out, offering the pear. _This_ she knows. He’s not sure if she remembers the days she spent in the nursery, tiny and mewling, taking fruit and leaves from her keepers’ hands until she discovered the power of her swing. Whatever it is, she doesn’t hesitate, her beak scraping at his healing skin as she takes the pear. It’s rough and sort of flaky but sharp enough to rip leaves from low shrubbery and branches. She swirls her tongue around the foreign sweetness of the pear, swallowing it in one gulp. Her tongue is huge and pink as it smacks around her mouth, chasing the sweet juices like she’s savouring it. The gesture is so _Echo_ that Owen huffs out a laugh, helpless. Echo was only three months old when she caught her first butterfly, rolling it around in her mouth. She’d spent so much time hunting that particular insect that she held it between her jaws for five minutes before crunching down. Owen had stroked her little head, heaping praise onto her skin, and smiled. Hunting butterflies became her favourite pastime, and she always made sure to show Owen each catch, seeking her alpha’s approval. No matter how mangled the butterfly, or how small, he always gave it. He gasps out a breath, wondering if the ankylosaur clubbed him in the chest after all.

The ankylosaur tilts her head ever so slightly, and it’s such an innocuous gesture. She’s just like his old school principal, who was not happy when Owen accidentally kicked a soccer ball through a window. She’d reamed him out for two hours, then tilted her head, tacit permission for him to flee. The ankylosaur is doing it now, her eyes saying _you’re free to go_.

‘That’s very kind of you,’ Owen snarks back, backing up so she can keep her eyes on him as he passes. The gravel shifts under his feet, same as ever. The world hasn’t shifted around him, hasn’t suddenly gone back to the way it was two weeks ago. But the ankylosaur brays after him when he waves goodbye and fills the void in his chest with a grain of sand.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have some more raptor feels.

Today should be like any other day.

The sun is still fighting to remain in the sky when he finally sees the silhouette he’s been dreading. It’s shrouded in shadow, cast into darkness by the angle of the sun, but he doesn’t need to see the details. They’re so ingrained, so instinctual. He’s sure he could navigate this place with six blindfolds on and his hands cuffed behind his back. It’s his place, after all.

The raptor paddock is eerily silent. Nothing moves, suspended in thick jelly. There’s no breeze here, the trees still. The predators may be gone, but they still have sense memory. They remember the frantic beating of their own hearts, the push of panic behind their ribs. The girls may be gone, but this is their territory. The pack isn’t here, but their scent remains. The scent of intelligence. Cunning. _Pack_. Owen hates his nose for being so shit, and the force of it wreathes coyly around his throat. A lump wiggles up his esophagus, clawing at the tender insides of his airway and squeezing threateningly around his lungs. Blue isn’t here. As much as his nose is unbelievably shit, he knows the smell of her. Knows the smell of long-dried blood and predatory instinct with the undercurrent of _home_. He’s sure there’s a hint of that smell somewhere around her, lingering beneath her favourite tree and in the box she always used, but it’s too faint. Everything here is too faint, too still, to quiet, and it hits him like a fucking freight train, carving up his insides and smearing them on the dirt for the birds. Owen’s hands itch with the urge to rip his own heart out, just to see if it’s still beating. He curls his fingers into his palms, clenching until his knuckles threaten to break free of their fleshy prisons. The visceral stretch and pull of bone and tendon does nothing to ease the ache.

Owen does what he’s done for the past two days – he follows the road. It leads right to the paddock entrance, then branches off to follow the perimeter fence, a moat of dirt. Gravel shifts and crunches beneath his boots, echoing over the empty ground. The sound shivers through the trees, and they swallow it hungrily, watching him. It’s probably the only sound they’ve heard in the past week. No one encroaches on a raptor’s territory, whether they are guarding it or not.

If the Indominus hadn’t been so cunning, Owen’s girls would still be here, watching him from behind the paddock bars. Owen would wave goodbye to them after a day of training them to use their intelligence to solve logistic problems.

The paddock gates are wide open, gaping in the dying light. The structures surrounding it are bathed in dark shadow, rising from the ground like immovable mountains. The paddock is a monolith, imposing and huge as it looms over Owen. Shadow engulfs him when he comes close enough, sucks him in greedily and clutches with clawed hands, desperate and selfish. And if they hope to fill the emptiness with Owen, they won’t have any luck. A giant void gapes open inside him, thick threads of unease barely managing to nestle in beside it. The girls are gone, and he’s not enough to make this place alive again.

The paddock gate hasn’t been open since the first day he brought the girls here. It had been closed for two and a half years, always keeping the raptors in. Even after that time, they still hadn’t found a way out. He’s not sure if it’s because Owen always walked the perimeter, double and triple checking the fences, or if it’s because they never wanted to leave. Like they wanted to stay.

The girls always did love it here. The moment they were allowed to run free, they shot into the undergrowth, disappearing into roiling waves of green. Owen watched them from the spotless new catwalk, a grin on his face. Echo’s tiny body wasn’t visible through the thick foliage, and Charlie’s colouration blended in so thoroughly he only caught fleeting glimpses of her eyes. Ferns shifted with their movements, Blue’s head poking up from her cover to keep him within sight. Her sisters may have spent the last few months in the nursery, tearing up the walls and terrorizing the staff. Owen spent most of his days there, always stayed until the lab techs kicked his ass onto the street. But he spent the most time with Blue. She was older than her siblings, always the leader. When she was old enough, Owen took her to his bungalow, trailing a tiny raptor wherever he went. Blue would chirp and coo at him, nuzzling into the collar of his jacket. The poke of her nose under his shirt and the huff of her breath on his skin were a part of every day of his life. She experienced the outside world with him, and she was the one he trusted the most. He never treated her like a lap dog – never forgot the predatory instinct coursing through her veins. But he took her with him, to show her that he trusted her in turn. That they were a cohesive unit. Blue never let him out of her sight, and Owen always kept her within reach. Even when she explored her new home, she swiveled her head to follow his movement on the catwalks. He ingrained it into her, taught her to always look to her alpha when he was around. A swell of pride broke into his chest, spilling into his lungs until they were ready to burst. His grin stretched his cheeks so they ached, and his face split with the force.

Owen clanged down the catwalk, coming back to the gate. Blue followed him, curious, head tilted slightly. He pulled the clicker from his pocket, pushing the button a few times and listening to his girls crash through the undergrowth, coming to a halt below him. Echo lagged behind, snapping at the swaying ferns and jumping back as they flicked into her face. The muscles in her legs twitched and shuddered as she jumped back and forth. Owen squeezed the clicker a few more times, commanded ‘Echo! Eyes on me.’ Her attention snapped to him right away, eyes tracking every shift in his weight, and he was glad to see his training held up to the lure of the outside world.

Blue’s eyes were on him, like they always were, and Charlie stared up at him as though Owen had given her the heavens, plucking the moon from the sky and holding it out to her. She barked excitedly at him, chatty as always, but never looked away. Owen’s always watched out for her. She was strangely compassionate for a raptor, always wanting to take care of Owen and her sisters, so he watched her carefully. Kept his eyes on her.

(The Indominus turned everything on its head. Charlie, the gentlest of his girls, died with a snarl on her face, filled with rage that was not her own.)

Delta’s attention strayed a little, but a sharp whistle took care of that problem. She may have been a mischievous girl, may always be looking for an opportunity to jump her sisters and scare Owen, yet she was serious. She had a

‘Blue, Charlie, Delta, Echo,’ he called, names falling from his lips sternly. The girls lined up under the catwalk, rocking back on their haunches to stick their necks up higher. Laughter bubbled in his chest and he pushed it down. ‘This is your new home,’ he told them, firm. Grabbed some fresh mice from a bucket by his feet, holding it up for them to see. Their heads bobbed upwards, following the treat, and he locked eyes with his beta. ‘Blue, this is for you,’ he said, throwing the mouse down to her. Fended off Delta’s attempt to steal her treat and punished her with a growl, Owen’s sharp whistle calling her off. He rewarded Charlie for her obedience and Echo for waiting patiently, but left Delta for last, staring her down until her head lowered apologetically. But she did catch the mouse, preening along with her sisters when he called out ‘Good girls,’ and gestured for them to continue their exploration.

They spent the next three days marking their territory.

Now, none of their markings are left. The scored trees are healing, leaving only scars behind, and it’s something Owen’s intimately familiar with. He’s not sure any of his own flesh is left. His soul is a scarred mess, broken tissue repairing broken tissue. He fixes the wounds but not the problem. He’s not really sure what the problem is, and it sets his chest pounding and head ablaze.

He stands at the open gate, takes a deep breath. The girls have left their footprints here, still visible in the shitty light, like they’ve left footprints all over his heart. The dirt around them has crusted and collapsed in some places, but it’s all he has left. This place carries the marks of them. The evidence of their existence. The proof that Owen thought he’d managed to succeed and ended up failing again. A reminder of all his fuckups, infused with the ash in his throat and the burning ache in his stomach.

This is his place. His home. Except it’s alien now, just a heap of concrete and dust, left to rot like the rest of this damnable island. Even the boxes are empty, and the sense memory shivers over his fingers, settling in his palms and his heart and his soul. He hopes it’ll fade away soon, and he hopes he’ll never forget.

For now, his chest splits open even further and he yearns for the feel of scaly skin beneath his palms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the hunt for Blue continues!


	10. Chapter 10

Owen is commissioned as a Lieutenant straight out of college.

He’s on a plane to San Diego before he has a chance to pack more than his toothbrush, the Navy putting him on a four-hour flight and telling him to sit tight. The plane is bigger than any he’s ever been on. It’s one of those giant commercial airbuses, stretching long and sleek on the runway. Tourists and businessmen brush up against Owen as he boards, coming up his ass so closely he tenses instinctively, trying to flinch away. It’s hard when there’s nowhere to go, and he’s practically pushing himself into the wall like a particularly horny dog in futile attempts to lessen physical contact with random strangers.

He finally clears the stairs, holding out his ticket. The flight attendant takes one look at his brand spanking new BDUs and the double bars on his shoulders, says, ‘Welcome aboard, Lieutenant.’

A little thrill goes through him. He’s lucky to have such a rank when he’s so fresh out of college. In fact, until the Navy representative showed up at his dorm, duffel bag, bars, and BDUs in hand, Owen wasn’t even sure if he’d been accepted. Sure, he’s already been to basic and done his first officers’ course. The Navy had taken a strange fascination in him from the beginning, when he’d enlisted as a cadet over the school holidays and told them he’d been accepted into college for animal handling. He passed basic with flying colours and continued to participate in reserve exercises for the duration of his college degree, taking the leadership courses they offered to fund because he wasn’t a complete idiot. After all the effort he put in, he’d been pretty sure he would get in after his course, but if his grades weren’t high enough after finals, he would have been screwed.

It was a huge relief when his local representative showed up at his dorm. The Navy Commander had just smiled, said, ‘welcome to the forces, lieutenant,’ and told him to haul ass. Eagles soared in his chest, from the tip of his toes to the last hair on his head. They battered around inside of him, but their feathers were soft, brushing against his lungs and pushing him to go faster. To _finally_ do what he always wanted. So Owen Grady changed, grabbed his toothbrush as an afterthought, and let the eagles carry him to the plane.

That sensation crashes around in his gut as he smiles at the flight attendant. He’s been working towards this for what feels like forever. He’s put in the time, and now he’s going to reap the rewards. The feeling in his chest is threatening to break out and spill onto the threadbare carpet, filling the plane so fully it won’t be able to take off. He says, ‘thank you,’ and it’s possibly the most heartfelt thank you he’s ever said.

The flight attendant gives him another quick smile as she glances down at his ticket. He watches as a frown spreads across her face and she leans over to her coworker, murmuring lowly.

‘What’s wrong?’ Owen asks, concern bubbling up beside the excitement in his chest. The businessman behind him is getting pushy, pressing up against his back. He resists the urge to growl, resists the impulse to whirl around and push the guy back. Instead, he clenches his hands around the duffel bag, knuckles turning his skin white.

‘You seem to have been given the wrong ticket, Lieutenant Grady,’ the flight attendant says. Her eyes glint with something like mischief, and she gestures for him to follow her. ‘I show you to your seat.’

He trails her for about ten meters, and sits when she tells him to. The cabin is luxurious around him. The chairs are lined with wood and leather, with enough room to adjust the seat for sleeping. The material is decadent on his work-roughened palms, the cushion curving like it was meant for his ass alone. ‘Excuse me,’ he says quietly. There are a few very-important looking businessmen in the seats around him, and he’s not too keen on pissing them off. ‘I think there may have been a mistake…’

The flight attendant just hands him the ticket, which is clearly marked for economy class. ‘Thank you for your service,’ she whispers. She leaves with a wink and a jaunty salute, and that feeling is back in Owen’s chest. It pushes up into his throat as a low chuckle, and he lets his head fall back.

Owen’s already soaring and the plane hasn’t left the ground.

He loses track of time, after that. He sleeps fitfully on the plane, giving the flight attendant a drowsy smile when they finally land. San Diego is fucking bright, and the drive to the base is a whirlwind of sunlight and traffic. It takes them forty minutes to get to the harbor in his military escort, but Owen doesn’t really mind. He takes the time to shake himself awake, slapping a hand against his face and hoping the sting will be enough to do the trick.

The driver practically hauls him out of the car, snatching the duffel from his hands. Owen’s lunging for it when a seaman pulls to a halt in front of him, executing a perfect salute. It’s textbook, and Owen’s completely thrown. He inhales deeply, salty air staining his tongue, and says, ‘at ease, seaman.’

The guy smiles at him, all teeth and excitement. ‘Yes Sir,’ he replies, entirely too cheerful. ‘Commander Johnson requests you at the holding tanks. He says your duties begin immediately, sir.’

Owen really fucking wants to be in bed right now, but he gives the guy a smile and gestures for him to lead the way. They trail through a giant warehouse, then down a few flights of stairs. The tanks appear after less than twenty meters, lined up neatly to his right side, backing onto the harbor. The water is a clear blue, getting murkier as it becomes a deep sapphire. Dolphins and sea lions watch him with beady black eyes as he passes, and he gives them a wave. They haven’t unnerved him for years, and they’re not going to start now. If anything is unnerving, it’s the sheer amount of concrete over him, pushing in with every second he spends here. The lights are bright, for underground lighting, but it’s still dark after the sheer amount of sunlight up above. His boots are soft on the concrete as he turns the corner and climbs a flight of stairs, water spanning out before him.

Commander Johnson is there with a couple of seamen, watching a dorsal fin glide along the water’s surface. He’s just as tall as Owen remembers, his eyes just as sharp. He doesn’t even turn toward Owen, just tilts his head, taking in Owen’s flight-rumpled uniform and bleary eyes. ‘Welcome to the mammal program, Lieutenant Grady,’ he says, and even that sounds like an order.

‘Glad to be here, Sir,’ Owen responds, coming to attention. ‘But if I may, sir… what am I doing here?’

A second dorsal fin breaks the water, followed by a glistening back and a spray of misted water. This dolphin is half the size of the first, the skin much lighter. The water is so clear he can see all of her, the way her tiny flippers wave back and forth to keep her in place and her tail twitches occasionally, as if she can’t help it. Owen stares at her, entranced. He’s seen mothers and their calves, but never this close. He’s worked with dolphins for months on end, yet this is the first calf he’s been close enough to touch. The slick grey skin is like a siren call, and Owen’s hands break into pins and needles. He wipes his palm on his BDUs so he doesn’t reach out.

‘You’re looking at her,’ Johnson says, and Owen glances up to him quickly. He can’t keep his eyes off of the calf for long, but it’s enough to see the seriousness in his eyes. ‘This is Tallulah, and we want you to be her primary trainer.’

Tallulah keens high, as if she recognizes her name. Her dorsal slaps against the water as she rolls, executing a tight corkscrew. She’s so graceful already, so beautiful, and she’s can’t be more than two years old.

‘It would be my honour, Sir,’ Owen says, and moves forwards at Johnson’s gesture.

He doesn’t feel the clunk of his knees on the metal deck, or the lap of water at his pants. Doesn’t feel anything but the warmth radiating from some spot in his pelvis and spreading into his chest like the plague, infecting everything. It seems to emit a low buzz from his very bones, shivering through his body helplessly.

Tallulah’s mother sticks close, watching him carefully. Intelligence lurks in the black of those eyes, and he can see it even through the shifting water. She’s big, and there’s a scar on her nose, but he’s not really concerned. It’s in a straight line, curving up from the corner of her jaw, and Owen’s seen them enough times to know it’s not from combat. She’s tried to snap up a jellyfish at some point and come out with a nasty sting, and it’s left a mark and a memory. It makes her look pretty badass, though, so Owen makes a vow not to mess with her. He’s not going to hurt either of them, and he projects that to her. Keeps his hands up and his expression soft.

‘Hi there Tallulah,’ he says, voice low. The little dolphin stops her corkscrew, poking her head out of the water. Her black eyes are filled with emotion. There are so many, floating around her, but she just opens her mouth and keens joyfully at him. ‘I’m Owen,’ he says, lips pulling into a smile without his permission. ‘And I’m gonna be your handler. How does that sound?’

Tallulah’s head is tiny, and she comes a little closer, more of her sleek body rising from the water. She chitters at him warmly, and his chest expands so far he’s sure it’s filling the tank and the room around them. His ribs are huge and his lungs still press against them, but it’s fucking wonderful.

Tallulah’s eyes are sparkling with more than just intelligence. She likes him. It’s in the way she inches closer, trust shining on her surprisingly expressive face, and she opens her jaws, grinning at him.

‘You’re a playful one, aren’t you?’ he says, shuffling forward. Owen stretches his hand out carefully, watching her every move. He’s expecting her to flinch back, to eye him warily. He’s expecting her mother to pull her back, to keep him from interfering.

Instead, Tallulah bursts forward, rubbing her side along his palm. Her skin is rubbery and slick on his own. She’s so sleek and graceful, squeaking gleefully at his touch. His smile becomes a grin, and he brings his other hand up, stroking carefully between her eyes. Tallulah clicks at him, sending out her echolocation probes. Other dolphins have done it to him before, like they’re aliens scanning his brain, and the thought makes him huff out a laugh. He holds still as she feels him out, cataloguing the size of him just as he’s cataloguing the feel of her. Powerful muscles pull and shift beneath his hands, and he’s never seen anything more beautiful. Not even Maria Lewis, the hottest girl in his college.

There’s a lump in his throat, pushing at the sides of his esophagus. He’s worked so hard for this moment. Spent years at college working his ass off while his roommate partied, studying when he could have been going out on dates. Watched everyone else have their fun, and stayed in to get up early for the reserves the next morning.

But this? Makes it all worth it.

Owen just stares at the beautiful girl beneath his hands and smiles. His gut swells with this feeling of _rightness._ His chest is so warm he’s certain he’ll need a fire extinguisher.

Tallulah rubs against his hands, and he murmurs quietly to her. She’s supposed to be his, but she’s claiming him. He doesn’t really mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Believe it or not, but Owen-the-dolphin-trainer is actually canon. Chris Pratt spoke about it in an interview on ScreenRant. 
> 
> Sorry for the late upload!


	11. Chapter 11

The fog of sleep lifts.

For reasons completely unknown to him, Owen opens his eyes. It’s so dark he can’t see anything above his head. Spots of light dance across his vision, his eyes freaking the fuck out with the lack of moonlight. Even when he turns his head, nothing changes. At least, he thinks he turned his head. It’s so fucking dark he doesn’t even know. The scrape of hard ground against his back and hair are all that keep him sane. He’s completely thrown for a fucking loop. Something shifts inside him, ribs squirming uneasily. Sensation crawls along his pelvis, settling wrong in his gut. His hands ache as he grinds them into the concrete ground, trying to place himself.

The complete disorientation passes enough for Owen to feel the vibration in his pocket, hear the telltale _vvmmmm_ of electronics. He lets out the breath he’s holding, slumping against the concrete. Something inside him still screams that he’s disconnected, separate from the world around him, but he pushes that shit down like he was born for it.

The phone’s screen is bright, flashing straight into his eyes. It blinds him, leaving a perfect imprint of Claire’s picture burning behind his eyelids. And –

Oh.

He’s so fucked.

The phone is still blinding when he reopens his eyes, but he squints to reduce the glare. The vibrations in his hand are familiar and completely alien. He’s in a jungle _alone_ – it’s kind of weird to suddenly have modern technology in his hand, even if he’s had it this whole time. This is dinosaur territory now. Phones don’t belong here, and neither does Owen.

His finger finds the green button anyway, and the light vanishes as he brings the phone to his ear. ‘Hey Claire,’ he says. His voice is rough, and it has nothing to do with his recent sleep. He talked to no one but himself the past few days. It says enough about his sanity that he counts it as a good thing.

Claire’s voice cracks over the phone like a whip. ‘ _Tell me you didn’t go back there_ ,’ she snaps.

‘I had to,’ Owen says, and it’s that simple.

‘ _You didn’t have to do anything! How could you be so stupid_?’

‘Stupid. That sounds like me,’ Owen retorts. It leaves a disgusting taste on his tongue and he doesn’t regret it.

‘ _Do not joke about this_ ,’ Claire yells, and he can see her in the hotel room, arms flailing. ‘ _Barry said you were going home for a week, and you just leave. You lied to me so you could get torn to bits in peace. Get back here, right now. I’m sending a chopper for you, and you’ll get on it without a word_.’

‘I can’t do that, Claire,’ he says quietly, and it hits him right in the sternum. Owen can’t even protect a fly, let alone Blue and Claire. He’s spent his life fucking up and he’s not sure why now should be any exception. A sinkhole opens his gut, swallowing everything but his failures, leaving them on display for all to see. But he’s already here, and maybe this time he can make up for his stupidity.

‘I have to find her,’ Owen whispers. And that’s all. He’s not here for fun. He’s not here to spite the Masrani Global board. He’s here for Blue. For pack. To find the one creature that means anything to him anymore. Claire is great, but she’s not Blue. She’s not _family_. ‘Blue, she’s –‘

‘ _A velociraptor_ –‘

‘No, Claire,’ Owen says. She doesn’t understand. She probably never will, but he tries anyway. ‘She’s _pack_. And she’s alone.’ _I’m alone_.

‘ _Owen, will you just listen to me_?’

Owen swallows the lump in his throat, but his voice is firm. ‘I can’t. I… Need to do this. And you need to trust me.’

The line is silent for so long he thinks he’s dreaming. That he’s finally lost it and hallucinated the entire phone call.

A shuddering breath rings into his ear. ‘ _Okay_ ,’ Claire says, slow and unsure. She’s not happy with this development but there’s nothing she can do about it. Owen didn’t tell her for a reason, after all. Short of bringing InGen into this – which they both don’t want to do – there’s no way to force him back. To force him to play domestic happy times with Zach and Gray or boyfriend with Claire. He likes them all, but it’s not him. Owen isn’t wired for happy family lives. He’s wired for animal training. For velociraptors.

He’s an alpha, and until he finds Blue (in one way or another), he’ll continue to act as if nothing has changed. (Or try, at least.)

‘ _Just be careful, Owen_ ,’ Claire says, never ready to beg. ‘ _I can’t lose you too_.’

A train barrels into his chest, and he can only choke out a ‘yeah’ before she hangs up.

And then he’s in the dark with nothing but the concrete beneath his back and the phone in his hand. His ears ring, the lack of sound spiraling through his brain like a kitchen whisk.

Owen’s lips are dry. His chest aches like it’ll never heal. His eyes burn. His heartbeat is too loud in his ears, gunshots cracking through his skull.

‘I’m alone,’ he whispers to himself. _I’m alone_.

God, it feels like there’s a fucking raptor clawing up his throat, hooking in with sharp claws and vicious teeth and clever eyes –

His stomach is following; using tiny, slippery hands to hook into the raptor gouges and come out through his mouth. Last night’s dinner makes a completely unwanted reappearance, warm and acidic in his mouth. It’s so unexpected that he almost faceplants when he’s done, narrowly avoiding the fall into his own vomit. His chest heaves, ribs clenching down on his lungs until he can barely feel them. Owen forces breath into his system. No one else is here to do it for him.

He gets up. The smell of vomit pervades everything, settling heavy like sediment in his brain. His stomach is steady again, now that there’s nothing left to slosh around. The panic is gone, purged along with last night’s dinner. Acid burns at the back of his throat, sliding thickly around his tongue, and he spits it out, trying to clear the bone deep hurt and the hatred in his bloodstream.

Owen walks. He takes his pack and leaves, emerging into the weak moonlight. It’s a bad idea. A _monumentally_ bad idea, but what isn’t these days? Owen’s night vision is shit, and the moon is just a slither in the sky, like it can’t be fucked to come out in full force. He can see the pothole in front of him, but his boot slides deeper than anticipated. The abysmal lighting is throwing off any sense of depth perception he has. Just throwing it out the goddamn window.

He should stay in the stables. He should stay in a building, where it’s safe. He should drink some water and eat some food. He should not be out here at night, where the dinosaurs have the advantage.

But Owen has never done what he should. He’s not going to start now.

In the freezing air, the smell of vomit lessens. Goosebumps rise along his forearms, reaching toward the moon. He pulls the pack tighter against his back, using it to warm him. A tremor shudders through him, and he’s not sure if it’s because of the cold or if it’s because of this deep-seated disconnect. It feels like the trees aren’t real, like the grass will be fake if he dares to challenge it. Like he’s not in the same place he was a couple of hours ago, like he’s running parallel to the universe, one foot in and one foot out: never truly being there, but never truly outside.

Owen just follows the road, as always. He lets the nagging in his chest push him until he stops thinking. Until he’s nothing but the crunch of gravel on a road and the too-cold air on his skin.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are a little more than half way through now. You may be wondering what happened to chapter 24, and I'm happy to say I didn't delete any scenes. There were a couple that were very similar, so I merged the two into one longer scene. You're not missing out on anything.

They go shopping.

They have no change of clothes, and what they do have is too filthy to even consider going out in public. Claire’s white skirt is ripped and smeared in brown muck that is probably more than just dirt, and her perfectly ironed shirt is torn and threadbare, hanging forlornly from the laundry basket. Owen’s shirt and vest are pretty filthy, but his pants have managed to survive in tact, if not completely dirt-free. Droplets of blood splatter on his boots, and it’s dried to a dark wine red. The leather is stained yet in miraculously good condition, and he’s going to keep those boots for a long time. If they survived the Indominus, they can survive anything the universe throws at him.

To her credit, Claire’s sister doesn’t even blink when they show up at her hotel room, wearing clothes that stink of blood and fear. Karen’s face is angular, her cheekbones slashing harshly across her face. Her nose is pointier than Claire’s, yet the bags under her eyes are barely visible. Her boys are here, safe, and so is her sister. She has nothing to mourn. Nothing to grieve.

Karen’s the lucky one. Zach and Gray too. They never bonded with the ACU troopers over beers and war stories. They didn’t watch their loved ones turn on them, ripping out what was left of his soul and shoving it back in an hour later. They never noticed the dead bodies. They didn’t watch their family – their _pack_ – vanish in balls of flame. They didn’t leave with nothing but the pull of their stomachs as it stayed with his heart. They didn’t leave a piece of themselves of Isla Nublar.

His eyes sting madly, throat closing like it’s been vacuum-sealed. Karen’s smile is huge and unconditional as she sweeps Claire into an embrace. Long, clawed hands ghost over his shoulders, the scent of Charlie in his nose, a flash of blue in his vision. For a moment, he’s utterly surrounded by the memory of them. And then the sensation of skin on his hands becomes Delta’s blood and Echo’s ashes slipping through his fingers. The moment of happiness turns bitterly sour at the back of his throat, burning like a brand.

Karen separates from Claire, glancing up at him. He swallows thickly as she wraps a hand around his bicep, gentle and nurturing. Owen’s spent his entire life learning how to manipulate people. How to fool others into thinking he’s harmless, or a military grunt. How to influence animals into believing he means them no harm. He never does, but they don’t understand words. They understand the exchange of energy and the slide of skin on skin. Karen takes one look into his eyes and _knows_. Sees the depth of his suffering, that feeling that something isn’t right. The push in his chest that makes him pace the hotel room and keeps him awake at night. The little voice insisting this is all an act. The instinct pulling him back to Isla Nublar like it’s an aphrodisiac, irresistible.

He’s only met Karen once, and he can’t fool her. Owen holds her gaze, ignoring the pressure buildup in his gut and the panic scrabbling at his lungs. ‘We need to get you some new clothes,’ she says, nose crinkling in amusement. Something releases in his throat, letting him breathe again. Relief burns through his veins.

She won’t say anything. But she’s a mum, and no one can fool a mother.

‘Isn’t dirty the latest fashion?’ he asks, forcing a smile onto his face. It doesn’t feel stupid, so he grins a little harder.

‘Don’t think you’ll get out of it that easy,’ Karen teases, calling for Zach and Gray. They look human again. Their clothes are clean and they’ve obviously showered as many times as Owen has, if the glowing pink of their skin is any indication. Zach looks like he’s ready to sit down and never get up, and Gray’s eyes are practically drooping. Even his hair isn’t as curly as Owen remembers. The two of them haven’t quite lost their bounce, though, because Gray’s eyes light up when he sees Claire. He’s running forward, clutching her in a hug, before he turns to Owen and does the same. But he doesn’t let go so quickly. Maybe he can sense the grief rolling off of Owen. Maybe he understood what Owen didn’t say when he introduced his girls. The thought lodges in his chest heavily, a giant lead ball between his ribs.

He doesn’t hear Karen’s talk about shopping. Gray’s arms are tight around his waist, back tense against Owen’s palms. He’s squeezing a little too hard, making Owen’s ribs creak dangerously, but he doesn’t care. Gray buries his head in Owen’s stomach, and Owen murmurs to him, low and quiet. He doesn’t know what he’s saying – he’s on autopilot. He’s spent so much time with animals that he runs gentling hands over Gray’s head, the feel of hair slipping through his fingers shocking. Owen pushes past it, stroking his hair and placing an arm around his shoulders, anchoring him in the here and now.  Gray relaxes gradually, and for a moment it’s Charlie’s skin beneath his hands. She’s trembling, curling against his stomach and around his back, trying to nestle into his vest. He listens to the crack of lightning overhead and pushes down everything but his belief that she’ll be okay. The knowledge that her alpha will protect her. Charlie snuggles closer, Delta creeping in beside her sister, and Echo’s practically vibrating with tension against his leg. Blue watches on, fond amusement in her eyes but always sticking close to her alpha.

Then it’s just the slide of hair under his hands and the burst of pain in his sternum. Gray is looking for reassurance, just like Charlie. Thick fluid builds up in the back of his throat and he swallows it down, moving back a little. Gray’s face falls before Owen turns, following Karen and the gang through the doors, arm slung firmly over Gray’s shoulders. His voice is shaky when he launches into an explanation about DNA and the building blocks of life, but he keeps talking. The sound ebbs and flows in his ears, and it’s like the constant stream of raptor calls Owen’s missed in the last five days. They trail after Karen, Claire and Zach when they finally reach the mall, murmuring conspiratorially. Owen chuckles at Gray’s enthusiasm and it doesn’t ache in his throat. Claire and Karen glance back at the two of them, holding up an Owen-sized shirt and Zach calls them both dorks, but there’s no hint of meanness in it. The fondness puts a bigger smile of Gray’s face than Owen ever will.

They wander the mall for what feels like hours. Really, Owen hates shopping. The crowds were always enough to put him off. He has no fond memories of being pushed around while shopping. Except now, those memories are interspersed with flashes of screaming tourists and dimorphodons ripping at his face.

Just when he thought he couldn’t get any more messed up, the universe proves him wrong again. _You are FUBAR, Owen Grady._

Owen’s busy fending off Claire’s endless barrage of fashion suggestions (fashion suggestions!) when his phone rings. Barry’s face grins at him from the screen and he pushes the _accept_ button with a little too much enthusiasm.

‘Thank _fuck_ ,’ he says in lieu of a greeting. Claire’s look is filthy, and Gray says something about swear words, but he’s not listening. ‘Requesting backup immediately,’ he begs Barry. ‘I’ve been forced to go shopping against my will. Does that technically mean I’ve been kidnapped?’

‘Owen,’ Barry interrupts. His voice is low and hard, and Owen’s only heard that tone from him twice. They’ve known each other for three years, spent their free time watching movies and drinking all sorts of alcohol, spent their working hours trying to be cleverer than a pack of velociraptors. Barry isn’t quite pack, but he’s family all the same.

Cold tentacles wrap around his kidneys, resting there. ‘What happened?’ he asks, diverting all of his attention to the crackle of Barry’s breathing.

‘The clean-up crew came back this morning.’

Electricity jolts up Owen’s spine. ‘Did they find her?’

‘There was no sign of Blue,’ Barry says, hesitant. At least the InGen guys didn’t get the chance to shoot at her. She might still be alive.

‘Then what’s the problem?’

‘They found Delta,’ Barry replies.

‘When are they bringing her back?’ Owen demands. He wants to give her a proper funeral, even if he’s not sure what that is.

Barry’s shuddering breath echoes through his head. ‘They threw her to the mosa.’

Something cracks inside him. The dam breaks, flooding wildfire into his system. His veins blaze with the force of it, cold tentacles squeezing his kidneys and oesophagus bursting. Blood pumps thickly, heart stuttering, and a growl slips from his mouth before he catches it. The muscles in his arms shudder, shoulders trembling haphazardly. His vision blurs, stomach bursting into flame and tying in knots. His intestines ache and his bones are so brittle they’ll break at any moment. ‘What?’ he chokes out, raptor claws wrapping around his throat.

‘They said it was easier to –‘

Owen’s snarling just like Delta, throat rumbling as he smashes his fist into the wall. The concrete reopens his split knuckles, leaving smears of blood and flakes of skin. The rage builds in his gut, nestled firmly in his pelvis and spreading into his lungs, taking over all coherent thought. His shoulders are so tense the muscle spasms uncontrollably, but he can’t feel the pain. Can’t feel the bones in his hands grinding on concrete as he crushes his fist into the wall. Can’t feel anything over the all-consuming rage sucking him in and leaving him out to dry. ‘I’m going to kill them,’ he snarls. ‘I’m going to kill them all, those fucking bastards taking her –‘

‘There’s nothing we can do,’ Barry says, sad. So, so sad. ‘I’m sorry, my friend.’

Owen chokes on empty air. It’s just as empty as the void inside of him, eating him alive.

‘Owen, what’s wrong?’ that’s Zach’s voice.

Owen swallows around the lump in his throat, hands clenching so tightly the phone creaks. ‘They fed Delta to the mosasaurus,’ he grinds out, and a truck crashes into him, leaving nothing but bloody smears on the asphalt.

No one approaches him. His chest heaves and his breathing rings in his ears. Somehow, Claire’s voice is clear as day. ‘We’ll make them pay,’ she promises.

Owen has no idea what the fuck the thinks she can do now, but it’s not worth it. Delta’s already gone.

They’re all gone.

Sometimes you gotta fight for family, and sometimes you gotta let it go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just want to say a huge thank you to anyone who has stuck with me so far. This story is a little different from the usual format and meanders a lot more than it probably should, so I am grateful to anyone who is still following! I've written 27,000 words and only 1,109 of that is dialogue. To anyone who made it this far, thank you! If you don't want to read the rest, I don't blame you. Thanks for sticking around anyway.
> 
> In the mean time, let us continue!


	13. Chapter 13

He’s not far from the raptor paddock when he comes across an interesting find.

It’s an SUV, sitting forlornly in the middle of the road. It’s not one of those fancy Mercedes Claire drives, all sleek and low-slung, which makes no sense on a four-wheel-drive. It’s not the clunky black shape of an ACU jeep, either. Owen’s spent his life around military-issue gear – he can pick the size and model of a troop car from the treads alone. And he’s equally good with engines, practically _feels_ the purr in his bones. But the car isn’t running, and it hasn’t moved for over two weeks.

It’s one of the park rangers’ four-wheelers, a comfortable-looking personnel transport vehicle. Owen approaches the car cautiously, eyes sweeping over the forest around it. If any dinosaurs are around, this is the perfect trap. Owen’s perfectly aware of the hurried park of the vehicle; how it faces the jungle, cutting diagonally across the road. Dirt and gravel piles up around the wheels, tracks clearly visible after having scraped through the topsoil and into the rich brown earth beneath. The car is smeared with it, splashes kicking up the sides. The flecks of died mud gather on the back door and bumper like it’s a Harry Potter convention. Yet the tire mounted on the rear door is relatively untouched – the Mitsubishi symbol is still bright silver, as is the _Pajero_ printed boldly beneath it. Definitely personnel transport, and probably reserved for VIPs. Never knew when a VIP could get pissy, after all. And then there were staff like Claire, who always liked to travel in style. (And that’s not true, because she trekked through the jungle with him, hopped readily onto the back of his quad bike and drove a shitty medical van, so who is he to judge.)

The Jurassic World logo glares at him, emblazoned on the side of the car. It’s like it’s mocking him, shouting _this used to be yours and now where are you, Owen Grady?_ And fuck it. He doesn’t even know the answer to that. He doesn’t _fucking know_. There’s a T-Rex lunging happily for his throat and an Apatosaurus chewing unhurriedly at his stomach, spilling acid and adrenaline into his bloodstream. The sensation bubbles through his muscles and tendons, into his head. The bright blue logo laughs at him, a gross imitation of the cobalt he’s spent the last three years of his life watching. The stripe he’s spent hours stroking, contented rumbles echoing up into his fingers. This blue isn’t deep enough – it’s on the surface and nothing more. It doesn’t become a deep sapphire in the shade of Blue’s favourite tree, or a bright cyan blue under the harsh summer sun, or the shade of stormy ocean when clouds roll overhead.

He’s not sure when, but they ankylosaurus must have come back, because his sternum is dented and broken, pushing jagged bone into his chest when it should be his armor. Not sure why his lungs are about to stop, but he’s still breathing.

Owen’s always breathing, when the dust settles.

Pushing down the sudden drop of his stomach, Owen tries the drivers’ door. It opens obligingly, revealing leather seats and wooden panels, complete with state-of-the-art GPS system that’s been wired into the Jurassic World network. Settling against the white leather seats feels wrong – Owen’s clothes are covered in dirt and dust, and he stinks. He’s been here for a couple of days, and he’s been walking the whole time. He’d love to wash the stench off of his skin, but he’s got other things to worry about. Like starting this car, for example.

Owen checks the ignition first, just in case the person stupid enough to leave this car unlocked was also an angel and left the keys. And because the universe hates him, the slot is glaringly empty, ready to receive a key. Owen instantly shifts, peering into the driver’s door with no luck. He lifts up the console next, probably taking too much delight in marking the leather with filthy fingers. There’s some paperwork inside and he barely even glances at the title ( _personnel transfer request_ ) before he grabs it, throwing the leaves of paper onto the back seat. It’s equally as fancy, and Owen’s only been in such luxury once before. He wasn’t filthy and restless, then, and he suspects the flight attendant would have locked him in the cargo hold if she could see him now. He’s so far from the fresh-faced Lieutenant he was. He’s not even sure who that guy is anymore. And it’s strange, because it’s something he _should_ remember. Owen’s gut says he should _remember_ what it felt like to be addressed by his newly-minted rank and watch Tallulah grow, a thrill lighting his guts. But he can’t remember what that thrill felt like, can’t remember if it was like electricity or like his intestines were filled with helium, and it’s something he should _know_. Owen’s not that kid. Hasn’t been for a long time. Doesn’t know what his own face looks like without the weight of a thousand deaths pushing down on him.

Owen pops open the glove box, but that doesn’t yield any results either. The driver probably took the keys with him for some inexplicable reason. As smart as Blue is, she’s not physically able to drive a car, and the other dinosaurs are too big to steal it. Or maybe they were worried about nutters like Owen, who might plunge the car into a tree or a building or something. While the prospect is tempting, he has a hurdle to jump first. Luckily, he’s hotwired a few cars before, and unlike the time in eleventh grade when he’d been dragged before his dad, he has no need to justify his actions. Owen may not be that great with technology – not like he is with animals – but the car sings under his fingers, purring to life. A sigh of relief slips through his lips and the tightness in his lungs eases.

The GPS flickers to life. He doesn’t bother trying to access anything: an error message instantly pops onto the screen, declaring _cannot connect to network_ in bold letters. It doesn’t matter anyway. The GPS is of no use to him, and now that he has a vehicle, it’s going to be easy to get to his bungalow. Blue hasn’t come back in this direction, and he needs a change of clothes. Owen puts the car into gear, easing her forward. He follows the gravel road carefully, eyes fixed on the trees. Don’t want to hit any roaming dinos, after all.

Maybe he’ll be able to pick up Blue’s trail.

(It’s impossible from here, but instinct pushes him to drive, so he goes.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There may not be a chapter tomorrow, because I have uni and a farewell dinner. But the day after will definitely be back on schedule!


	14. Chapter 14

Owen follows Claire.

The Masrani Global building is as large as Owen expected. It’s the closest facility to Isla Nublar, after all, and they have jurisdiction over Jurassic World. The skyscraper is the usual Masrani fare – all glass and steel with nothing more substantial to hold it up. Owen knows they’re going for a particular aesthetic, but it didn’t work so well at Jurassic World. They should probably think about remodeling. There isn’t much room to genetically engineer more baby Indominuses (Indominii?), but he wouldn’t put it past them anyway. He’s seen how Masrani corp get ahead of themselves, and he’s not keen to see a retread of Jurassic World. There aren’t enough raptors in the world to fix this company’s problems. If Blue is still alive – and the tiny voice in his head oscillates between insisting she’s fine and insisting she’s dead – then he can’t sacrifice her.

Owen’s so tired of sacrificing everything. Tired of putting everything on the line and coming up empty. The hollow ache crawls up through his guts but he doesn’t really feel it. It’s like he’s standing off to the side, watching as he enters an ornate elevator, bags under his eyes and a drag in his step. The car pulls upwards, lobby getting smaller and smaller.

Claire and Barry mill about beside him. The elevator is ridiculous, actually. Wood and steel line both sides, warm oak clashing with cold metal. The rear wall is glass and Owen looks out over the lobby of what he guesses is a stock standard Masrani office. The marble floor gleams back at him, and he wonders how much it would hurt if he smashed the glass and leaped. Whether the agonizing crunch of bone on marble and the pierce of ribs in his lungs will match the gut-lurching grief he can’t pack away. Whether hitting the ground will finally stop his heart thundering in his ears and the echoes of Delta’s skin under his fingers and Charlie’s bright, angry eyes. Emotions skitter out of his grasp – they slip through his grip like Tallulah’s hide, sleek and unharmed. It’s been seven days and he still can’t wrangle the grief coursing through his veins, the anger bubbling beneath his skin. He can’t shove it into boxes and lock it away. Owen’s not sure he remembers how.

Barry has large hands, steady and sure. It rests on his shoulder, burning an imprint through his shirt as he calculates how much force he’ll need to smash the glass wall. It’s only a thin piece of fabric, so he feels Barry’s fingers dig in to rigid muscle. Barry’s fingers claw into him, but they don’t rip him apart. They are an anchor to the physical world. To the _human_ world. Barry might be the best friend he’s ever had, and it’s like he’s seeing into Owen’s head. He pulls Owen back from the window, shaking his head, dark eyes watchful. ‘No, Owen,’ he says, and it’s the way he scolds Echo when she’s too aggressive or Delta when she’s sneaking up on the new keepers, ready to lunge through the bars.

A laugh startles from his throat. ‘Yes, mum,’ he sighs, long-suffering. It’s worth Barry’s bright grin and the slap to his shoulder.

‘You wouldn’t survive a day without me.’

_And I thought I wouldn’t survive a day without my pack_. ‘And who saved your ass when you were busy cowering in a log?’

Barry’s grin doubles in intensity. ‘I had it under control.’

_None of us were in control._ The Indominus was a series of incidents no one had control over. And he knows that, he really does, so why is it his fault? Like all the other times he’s lost everything, it just is. None of it makes a lick of sense, but that’s the way it is. Owen has a lot to repent for.

‘Keep telling yourself that,’ Owen retorts as the elevator finally comes to a stop. Barry’s hand is still on his shoulder, dragging him out of harm’s way. The carpeted ground is solid beneath his boots, and he takes a deep breath, shrugging Barry’s hand off. Barry’s eyes are still on him, but that’s okay. He can hold it together for an hour.

Claire’s worried about him – it’s in the paleness of her eyes and the lines of her face. She just glances at him and narrows her eyes before turning on her heel and continuing down the corridor. She’s back in her patented white outfit, formal and unreachable. The tight skirt is welcoming and the billowing blouse is deliciously touchable, yet it’s the nude heels that scream _back off_. She ran the length of Isla Nublar in those heels, keeping pace with him, and it’s terrifying. She’s every inch the shrewd businesswoman, and Owen does not want to get in her way. He just follows her to a set of ornate double doors, covering her six as she barges in, all guns blazing.

‘When I make a request, I expect it to be heeded,’ she says, voice steady and unmoving as a slab of concrete.

There’s a man sitting at a desk, hair greying at the temples. His suit is more expensive than Owen’s bungalow and bike combined and he has this sleek look to him that raises Owen’s hackles. The nameplate on his desk is impeccably clean, inscribed proudly with _Anthony Preston_.

‘And when I am in a private meeting, I expect to remain undisturbed,’ Preston says coolly, unfazed.

Claire’s face is thunderous. She’s like the tropical storms they get on Isla Nublar. He’s swept up in her wake, trying desperately to remain in the eye of the storm and getting battered when he strays too far. Luckily, all of her attention is on Preston.

‘I would hate to interrupt an important meeting between members of the board,’ she replies, and it’s downright frosty. ‘Or perhaps I should tell the other five members that you’ve convened in private?’

Preston’s eyes narrow. ‘What do you want, Miss Dearing?’

‘Why wasn’t I notified of the failure to recover the velociraptor body? I specifically requested that it be transported here.’

Preston looks pissed, coiled tightly, and he gestures to the second guy at his desk, another equally slimy businessman. ‘Martin, if you would leave us to discuss this privately,’ he says, then waves a hand dismissively at Owen and Barry. ‘You too.’

Owen doesn’t fight him, just back out of the doors, trusting Claire to kick his ass. She’s good at this kind of thing, and he has no doubt she’ll humiliate the guy.

It’s just not enough.

As soon as the doors close, Owen turns on Martin. He puffs up his chest, standing taller and taking advantage of the fear in the suit’s eyes. Takes too much pleasure in the terror on his face when his back hits the wall and Owen’s still coming towards him. ‘W-what do you want with me?’

Owen doesn’t trust himself to speak. Luckily, Barry is the best back-up he’s ever had. ‘We need you to get us onto Isla Nublar,’ Barry says, voice low and in control.

‘You’re crazy if you think I’m going to –‘

Owen’s hand claps over his mouth, stopping the shouts before Preston hears them. ‘You are going to get me back there,’ he grinds out, leaning in close. ‘Or we’ll just have to tell the UN about the board’s intentions to militarize the raptors and the Indominus Rex. You’ll be put away for a long time,’ he growls, fury bubbling low in his pelvis and spilling into his intestines. His shoulders are trembling with the urge to castrate the guy, but he resists. ‘And with the resources of the United Nations, Henry Wu will have nowhere to hide.’

Martin’s hand scrabbles at Owen’s arm, scratching gouges into his skin. Amusement nestles in beside his lungs. Bigger people have tried to take him down and failed. Hell, even the universe has it out for him. Martin is nothing.

‘You will get me a chopper, a pilot, and a gun,’ Owen rumbles. ‘Or you’ll never see your family again, not after the UN is done with you.’

Martin’s eyes are huge. It’s a low blow, and Owen’s not proud of it. The words sit uneasily on his tongue, sliding around his mouth too easily. He’s threatened people before, after they got people killed.

After they took away Owen’s family.

He’s just never blackmailed anyone. Owen’s always backed down, let the hollowness eat him from the inside out and the waters of guilt erode his organs. And every time, he promises he’s learned his lesson. He goes somewhere else, starts over. Tries not to get attached.

(Fails.)

Animal trainers have a connection with their charges, he knows this. He didn’t count on Blue’s charming cobalt stripe, Charlie’s unconditional affection, Delta’s endless pranks and Echo’s bounding enthusiasm. Even the feel of Blue’s claws embedded in his shoulder is preferable to the emptiness in his chest, the black hole that sucks everything in. His girls are – _were_ – predators, and he knew it wouldn’t last forever. Knew they would turn around and go for his throat, tearing off his limbs with relish. He respected them and they didn’t openly go for his extremities. The girls had a human alpha, after all. If he wasn’t careful, he would smell like prey.

Now, he can practically smell Martin’s fear. The guy nods against Owen’s hand, eyes bugging out of his head. Owen snarls at his one last time, for good measure. Sometimes you have to fight for family and sometimes you gotta let it go. Owen’s tired of giving up.

He turns his back on Martin’s panicked breaths, making his way towards the stairs. The elevator is a bad idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience! I'm moving out for the second time in six months and everything is pretty stressful with uni going back, but there's so much more to be told. So I will try with the daily updates but I may have to skip a day over the next week. Thanks for sticking with me, though, and feel free to nag me to post something!


	15. Chapter 15

The summer sun is warm on his cap.

Bright slithers of light catch in his eyes. The water is choppy, out here, reflecting the sun like a thousand shifting mirrors. It bounces up into his face, swirling wildly over his uniform, pooling in the bars on his shoulder. The boat slaps onto the water, bucking beneath his feet. His uniform is hot on his skin, the navy blue fabric soaking up the sun. His cap does nothing but protect him from sunburn, and the pressure of the heat pounds through his head, soaking him from the scalp down.

Owen leans against the prow’s railing. It’s cool on his palms, misted water clinging to his skin. The boat shifts and rocks but his boots are solid. His stomach and intestines roll with the surf, twisting up inside of him, and it’s familiar. Bile doesn’t rise to the back of his throat, and he isn’t afraid. Well, probably. His internal organs are a gyroscope, telling him which way is up. The boat is low-slung, sitting close to the water. It’s not very big – just big enough to fit a tank and a wheelhouse, really. Gives a whole new meaning to ‘we need a bigger boat’. Another wave crests under the bow, spraying onto his boots and BDUs. The water goes cold in patches, sticking his clothes to his legs, but his attention is elsewhere.

Owen’s eyes rove the vast expanse before him. It’s hard to pick out any details against the brightness of the sun and the deep green of the sea. There’s a pair of sunglasses in his top left-hand pocket, practically begging to be worn. He doesn’t do it – Tallulah hates his sunglasses, and it’s unfair to distract her right now. They’ve been working towards this day for years, and while Owen has the utmost confidence in her abilities, he’s not going to put her in harm’s way. He just squints at the waves, rocking with the boat and watching for a sign of her.

A gunmetal grey dorsal slices through the water to the starboard side. The technician is already alerting the rest of the vessel to Tallulah’s arrival when Owen reaches the end of the deck, submerging his hand. The water is warm on his skin, lapping gently at his forearm as he holds still. Tallulah’s dorsal fin skirts around the side of the boat, making a beeline for Owen. He doesn’t bother calling her. Some other trainers call their dolphins with their voice, and it’s not a bad method. Every animal is different, and Tallulah more so than her Navy compatriots. She’s not necessarily smarter than Lieutenant Cole Marin’s charge, but she’s unpredictable. It makes his sternum itch and his lungs fly. Owen keeps his hand in the water, watching Tallulah’s nose emerge from the sea. He’s always been tactile with her, touches her whenever he can. It works for them, and Tallulah is always seeking physical contact.

Marin is fresh out of college, eager-eyed and missing the lines of life on his face. He insists on sitting beside Owen in the commissary, all smooth cheeks and endless enthusiasm. Owen’s a great person – he must be – and he puts up with the stream of conversation, occasionally interjecting with sarcastic retorts. Marin seems to like him, for some reason. Luckily, he loves his charge even more.

‘How’s Eira coming along?’ Owen asked as Marin’s tray bumped into his, sending it skittering away like a nervous colt. He followed it, edging away as Marin sat way too close. The edge of the seat kept him from moving any further away, but Marin’s shoulder was still touching his.

Owen fidgeted with his spork, scooping the rice into his mouth to avoid participating in Marin’s sudden stream of conversation. Their shoulders bumped as Marin gesticulated wildly, Owen’s hands twitching with the push in his chest. His lungs filled with something he couldn’t name, and usually he would provide some sort of commentary, but he kept silent. Listened as Marin extolled Eira’s virtues, talked nonstop about how smart she was. Thanked Owen for the advice he’d given on hand gestures last week. It was par for the course.

Owen’s chest constricted and the words were out before he could stop them. ‘Marin, I’m gonna level with you,’ he said, easing further away. ‘I have no idea what the fuck you want from me and I don’t know why you need to sit _right_ next to me when we can have a perfectly normal conversation with more than thirty inches between us.’

Marin’s face fell, eyes intent. ‘You’re the best trainer we have, and I want to be just as good,’ he replied. His voice lowered as he leaned in, head down. His eyelashes were strangely soft on his cheeks, for a guy, and where _the fuck_ did that come from? ‘And I thought you might like some company later on,’ Marin murmured, completely serious.

 _Nope_ , Owen’s mind protested, and he was out of his seat like a shot, picking up his nearly-full tray. ‘I don’t really –‘ he began, then changed tact. ‘Um. Thanks for offering, I guess.’

Just like that, the grin was back on Marin’s face, as if the whole discussion never happened. ‘Suit yourself, sir,’ he said easily, oblivious to the salad tossing in Owen’s gut.

Eira may be smart and Marin enthusiastic, but that wasn’t Owen. Those two work well together, balance each other equally. Tallulah is unpredictable waves and playful chattering. Owen is calm and the solidity. They know each other intimately, from their training. She knows the sound of Owen’s praise in her ears and the feel of his ecstatic _whoop_ in the air. He knows the splash of her tail on the water’s surface and the curve of her dorsal, the smile she keeps just for him. They’ve been together every day for the past four years, learning each other.

Tallulah’s nose is slick on his wet skin, the water protecting her from the callouses on his palms. She knows his hands better than she knows her own body. She can locate his hand in the water from a klick away. She may not be the smartest, but her echolocation is unmatched, and she can recognize Owen by that alone. There’s no point calling her name verbally when Tallulah knows exactly how to find him. It’s always worked when they trained, but out here is different. She’s only done two missions before, and the knowledge does nothing to erode the stone set in his stomach.

Tallulah rises out of the water, clicking cheekily at him. Her black eyes gleam with the freedom of the open ocean, Owen’s lips matching her smile. ‘Good girl,’ he praises, voice warm. A tight bundle of emotion nestles at the base of his oesophagus, radiating heat into his chest, but he puts a lid on it, projecting his calm to her. ‘Tell me,’ he says, tapping behind her eye three times.

Clicking five times, Tallulah finishes with a keen, all smiles and pride.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Owen laughs, throwing her a fish from the red bucket to his left. ‘Good girl.’ He runs his palms over her skin, her favourite reward, as he says to the helmsman, ‘five mines total.’

A tech approaches him, laptop in hand. There’s a frown on his face, and that is never good. ‘I’m only reading four bogeys on the mapping system, sir,’ he says, worry seeping into his tone. ‘You’ll have to send her back out. I’m not sure why this isn’t –‘

‘Calm down, seaman,’ Owen commands, in no mood for his bullshit. ‘You’re distressing Tallulah.’

The muscles under his hands are twitching and her eyes are darting around edgily. Tallulah’s the most sensitive dolphin he’s ever known. She picks up on moods with such ease it’s worrying. In the early days, Owen always wondered why she wasn’t inclined to obey commands. Why she seemed frustrated. When he finally learned how to project a little better, Tallulah calmed instantly. She’s been nothing but playful since, and she’s quick to pick up on outsider emotions such as anger or worry. Tallulah has excellent hearing, and Owen suspects she can hear the clench of the tech’s heart and the whoosh of his worried breaths. Hell, she can probably hear the unrelenting pulverization of Owen’s kidneys at the tech’s announcement, but he makes an effort to hide it. Projects _calm okay trainer trust knowledge_. She revolves around him, the moon to his Earth. He grounds her, and she is ethereal, beautiful and a constant mystery.

‘I’ll send her out again,’ Owen acquiesces. ‘But it’s the last time. If this doesn’t work, the SEALs will just have to risk it.’

The tech’s face clearly says what he thinks of that. Wisely, he keeps it to himself. Owen doesn’t really feel like punching a geek today, so it’s for the best.

He runs his fingers over her cheeks, says, ‘Data swim,’ emphasizing the syllables, and whistling loudly, a steady tri-tone. He spent months trying to perfect that whistle, and it’s paid off.

Keening contentedly even though her eyes won’t rest on the same spot for more than a moment, Tallulah does a tight turn and slips back into the water, dorsal fin disappearing.

Owen returns to the prow of the ship to wait. His cap threatens to fly away in the crosswind, pulling up and down at the same time. The smell of salt fills his head, cleansing his sinuses. The rock of the boat is so intimately familiar, wrapping around him like a hug. He hasn’t felt at home since leaving his mum and dad’s house, but this comes pretty close. With nothing but the low rumble of voices and the slap of the metal hull on the waves, it’s almost perfect. All he needs is Tallulah’s chatter and everything will be okay.

Even now, something isn’t sitting right in his gut. He can’t relax, even with the sun leaking into his system like a drug. It must be something bad he ate the night before. His intestines are shifting in his abdomen, sentient vines laid back and forth across each other. The odd sensation settles into the cradle of his pelvis and burns into his sternum, pushing pushing _pushing_.

‘Is everything running smoothly?’ Owen asks the tech guy, watching the water with sharper eyes.

Orange flames burst from the surface, turning the water orange.

It’s a mine. He would know that sound anywhere. It rumbles through his liver and shivers up his ribs, leaving nothing except the desperate clamor of emotions just below his sternum. Someone’s gasping like a panicked asthmatic, he doesn’t know who, and what right does anyone else have to gasp like that? His chest heaves in time, but it can’t be him. It can’t be him because he’s always calm and he always has everything under control except he doesn’t anymore, does he?

‘ _Tallulah_!’ he calls, and he knows it’s useless he knows that but he has to do something he has to say something he can’t just stand here and be safe when Tallulah –

But he does just that, because Tallulah can’t hear him. She always comes back. She’s spent nights in the open ocean and she’s always found him again. Always. He expected her to come back.

But then, Tallulah has never done what he’s expected.

Flippers beat mercilessly at his lungs and he hits the deck, knees screaming violently. The sharp pain zings up his nerves, feeding the ball of tangled shit in his throat. He sticks his hand into the water and it slides across his palm, cold and empty. Waves his hand and gasps desperately over the sound of seamen yelling. The water erodes the skin of his palm as the engine rumbles, the boat taking him away from the danger zone. They never wanted to take Tallulah from the danger. Fucking hell. His palm itches uncontrollably, water becoming sandpaper, and he can’t take it back. He’s just a useless anchor, and his ship is gone. He has nothing to protect, any more. His lungs seize around his closed throat and his tongue sits thick and heavy in his mouth.

Four years of work and the best friend he’s ever had goes up in a ball of flame.

They give him Kalila as recompense, but it doesn’t fix their fuck-up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, another chapter! I'm still moving but I've found a little time for writing lately and I couldn't resist.


	16. Chapter 16

The road is familiar. For three and a half years of his life, Owen used this one road to do nothing but go back and forth between the raptor paddock and the bungalow. Though the vehicle is unfamiliar, the territory is not. He’s so used to passing through the tunnel of trees on his bike, surrounded by swirls of green leaves and golden light, and it’s strange to be here, enclosed in a luxury car that probably costs more than he earns annually. And ain’t it fucking hilarious that none of it matters, really. Even before this most recent clusterfuck, he hadn’t come here for the pay. He hadn’t really come here for the raptors either. Ain’t that the kicker.

Owen never intended to get attached. Now he’s back on this godforsaken island, hunting down a 65-million-year-old predator. He felt his guard slip the moment Blue’s head peeked out of the shell. The moment he spotted that charming stripe of colour down her side and his heart melted into the spaces between his ribs. He was a goner as soon as Charlie nuzzled into his jacket, huge eyes closed in contentment. It took Delta’s playful nips at his hands to elicit the overwhelming warmth in his stomach. Echo’s clawing of the nursery walls sealed the deal. He’s given his trust to so many animals before. Offered them little bits of himself. He always got attached, because he never learns, but the raptors were different.

Owen didn’t understand the meaning of _pack_. Humans aren’t really social creatures. People separate themselves all the time, partitioning spaces that should be shared and claiming individual territories. Owen’s bedroom belonged to him, even though it was part of the house. Human beings live in social groups but constantly crave solitude, seeking it however they may.

Pack isn’t like that.

_Pack_ means sharing everything. It means hierarchies and rankings. Those rankings just don’t have a heap of political bullshit piled behind them. Pack is Blue’s first few weeks with her new siblings. Her constant irritated tolerance and snarling teeth, and the warmth taking root in her eyes. Pack is Charlie and Delta’s constant playfighting. The clash of claws echoes through the paddock and both of them return unharmed, so careful not to injure _pack_. Pack is Echo’s beige skin stark against green ferns. It’s the way Charlie slides in front of her sister like a chameleon, keeping them hidden from the world. Pack is Blue’s keen gaze on Owen, tracking his movement. Pack is Owen calling ‘eyes on me’ and not getting eaten.

_Pack_ is the ball of warmth turning to marble in his lungs. Beautiful and intricate. _Pack_ is the constant ache of his throat, the flame at the back of his eyes. _Pack_ is the heavy weight of his intestines and the matchstick of warmth tucked between his ribs. _Pack_ is the bitter taste of belonging and loss and home rolling around his mouth, syrupy on his tongue. Pack is the shudder of his breath through his nose as he opens the car door, Blue’s footprint stark in the mud.

Owen crouches, knees sinking into soft ground. Rocks back on his heels, and he can’t take his eyes off of that one simple imprint. His pants and boots are filthy, his knees rioting against the position but none of that matters. Blue’s feet touched this piece of ground, sunk into the mud like Owen’s knees, and he’s finally on the right track. Something pushes at the tender insides of his ribs and crawls up his throat. It’s the first time in days it doesn’t hurt. The first time the low-burning fire in his gut has been extinguished. All that’s left is the knowledge that Blue is still alive and he made the right decision.

He made the right decision.

The emotion escapes him desperately, gasps falling from his lips. She’s still here. _Pack_. Blue came to his bungalow. Looking for me? Owen’s hopeful but he’s not stupid. Raptors don’t understand human sociality. Blue tilted her head at him and Owen shook his. And he believed it when he refused her. _You’re doing the right thing_ , he chanted as his heart doubled in on itself and Blue streaked away, calling for sisters she no longer had. He ignored the voice that told him to just _man up and fight for a fucking change_ and turned away, a chunk of his soul calling forlornly along with Blue. But she came here. He tamps down the eagle in his throat and glances over to the meat locker, taking in the wide-open doors and facing the facts. Raptors burn calories like there’s no tomorrow and after the cleanup crew took away any sources of food that weren’t likely to kill or crush her, she had to resort to desperate measures.

Owen straightens from the crouch, knees staging a strike. He stays where he is, staring down at the muddy perfection that is Blue’s imprint, and lets the lump in his stomach erode away. Afternoon light dapples through the trees, bouncing off of the water like Echo. It’s all so familiar, so completely innocuous. The lump grows and erodes away at the same time, and the sensation sits strangely in his kidneys. It’s not completely gone by the time he takes a step forward again, but it’s good enough. Nothing is _great_ any more. Only _good enough_.

When he looks up, the door catches his eye. The dark wood is splintered, scored by long, vertical scratches. He can’t see the handle, but it’s probably here somewhere. Blue doesn’t have much use for a door handle, after all. The mental image of her carrying one gently between her jaws forces a _huff_ from his nose. He thinks it’s a laugh, and he’s perfectly happy to settle for it. The meat locker by the steps to the bungalow is wide open, smeared with dried blood. Sure, the meat in there was a little bloody. It’s obviously why the smears are on the outside of the locker as well as the inside, and why there are drops of it on the bright green grass. He believes it’s from the meat. In the end, all that matters is that Owen believes it.

He takes the steps two at a time, feet planted firmly on the decking. It’s as solid as he remembers, like nothing has changed. Apart from the meat locker and the door, everything is how he left it. There’s a half-finished bottle of coke resting by the door, covered in flies. Tools are still scattered around the vivid grass, and his shed has been left untouched. Even his barbeque is scratch-free, although the cooking utensils are scattered around haphazardly, and he definitely didn’t do _that_.

Owen pulls the ruined door open, and why he’s surprised to see the destruction, he doesn’t know. It’s an apt metaphor for his life.

Pots and pans litter the floor forlornly, forgotten toys never packed up. Some cabinets have been torn off of their hinges, spilling broken plate shards onto the wood. The fridge isn’t open despite the claw marks around the handle. He doesn’t doubt for a second that Blue raided that fridge. She must be desperate, to be eating refrigerated and processed foods. The thought makes his pelvis ache and the base of his spine drop through to his heels. She’s never gone hungry, not when Owen had anything to say about it, and he’s not sure what that means. Not sure whether she’ll be the Indominus, killing everything that moves, or whether she will take food from his hands. The uncertainty of this – of _everything_ – is poison in his bloodstream, and he can’t find the antidote.

Blue clearly didn’t care for the cupboards or wardrobe doors. Most of them are scored viciously, if they are still on their hinges. Everything he owns is strewn on the floor for all to see, and there’s no one here but Owen.

His clothes have been taken from his closet and spread out on the bed. The entire contents of his meager wardrobe are there, bundled together with his old sheets. There are some T-shirts in desperate need of a wash, as well, and Owen’s not really sure what happened here. There isn’t a single hole in any of his clothes, even that fucking formal shirt of his with the blue stripes. The hanger is still attached but it’s there, lying at the edge of the pile. He wishes Blue ripped into it, taking out her anger on the monkey suit like Owen always wanted to. Instead, it’s been placed with care and there isn’t a single tear in sight. His favourite trackpants are in the middle of the pile, wrinkled. The bed looks slept-in, and while Owen hates making it every morning, he still does it. There are things the Navy drilled into him that he can’t shake. Now, there’s a pile of clothes and wrinkled sheets in a Blue-shaped indent. She’s curled up here, like she used to curl up in the nursery, and something sparks in his gut. It’s gentle, slow, and it takes over his body without consent, filling up his nose and throat and eyes until he can’t breathe through the tender fullness of it. Blue is alone. She came here for a reason. His clothes are smeared with light brown dirt and his bed has been slept in.

She’s a clever girl.

Owen swallows valiantly, turning back towards the destruction. Blue’s tail has swiped a shelf clean, leaving only dusty imprints behind. Photo frames are dumped face-down on the floor, glass pooling around them like rain. It’s so fine it’s like dust, tiny particles of light reflecting into his eyes and catching on his filthy pants. Larger shards are cracked down the middle, as though something heavy stepped on them. Others have been bathed in thick syrupy red. It’s not sliding down the glass anymore but it still looks wet. A horse kicks him in the chest. The frames are lying around him, frozen in time, but it’s the blood that holds his attention, not the ruins of his former life. It surprises him how little this matters. He’s lived here for three and a half years, towed the trailer to this exact spot. The first night in this jungle is vivid in his memory and waking up to the chatter of birds and monkeys is achingly familiar. His photo of his mum and dad is face-down, glass sprayed carelessly at his boots, and he loves that photo. He loves it, but he can get another one. He loves this bungalow, but he can rebuild it.

He loves Blue, but he cannot replace her.

It’s so easy, to leave his bungalow. To walk through the splintered door and find Blue’s most recent footprints, her long middle talon digging into the dirt. He could always tell the girls apart. Could differentiate Charlie’s strong legs and Delta’s long forearms. Could tell Echo’s snarls from Blue’s. Could recognize the deeper footprints as Delta’s, the longer strides as Echo’s and the lighter ones as Charlie’s. The claws dig deep on these footprints, and it’s Blue. The ground is still supple beneath his probing fingers.

Owen stands; resisting the urge to throw a match into the splintered ruins of what he thought was his home. Doesn’t let it take away from the warmth growing tentatively in his chest and turns away, looking into the jungle. Blue’s footprints lead straight into low-hanging ferns and shrubbery, daring him to follow her.

Owen knows the danger. Knows what’s out there. Knows how much he doesn’t know, really. But he’s already come too far – made too many fucking stupid decisions – to back down now. The jungle is her territory, the Rex’s territory. And he can’t let Blue go now.

He’s so _close_. He can’t be more than a day behind her. For the first time in days, Owen takes a peek at a box. He cradles it tenderly, careful not to open it. It’s so light in his hands, practically floating out of his grasp. A tiny slither of it fills his chest like last night’s moon. Owen slots it into the spaces between his ribs, caresses the lid with soft fingers. He brushes off the dust, and even though the box is tattered at the corners, it’s still holding strong.

Owen follows the trail. Shrubbery catches on his pants and tries to snag his vest, but it doesn’t matter. Blue has always followed him, wherever he goes, and now it’s his turn. The box rests securely in his ribcage.

It’s labeled _hope_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for spilling my metaphors all over the place. (Which, in itself, is a metaphor. I should stop now.)
> 
> Hopefully there won't be any more delays!


	17. Chapter 17

Kalila is bright. She isn’t the sun, like Tallulah. The world doesn’t gravitate around her, and she doesn’t blind him. They have a bond: of course they do. Owen sees her for what she is – smart and quick. Kalila’s topside is darker than her underbelly and her eyes glitter when they fix on him. He picks her from three others, when she’s less than a year old. Johnson practically gift-wrapped Tallulah for him last time, and Owen’s mum taught him not to refuse gifts. He wishes he’d disobeyed her, when he sped away on a standard-issue transport boat without his girl on it. Tallulah lit a flare in his intestines when they first touched, and took a slice of his liver when she never emerged from orange flame and steam. Emotion dragged heavily at his diaphragm, stretching it too thin. The muscle screamed out at the abuse, but it was satisfying, in a visceral way. His throat begged for water, for a reprieve from the constant scrabbling at his oesophagus. Owen ignored it, too busy trying to keep his mind in his own body. Flashes of orange flitted at the edge of his vision, dancing seductively in his peripheral. Every time he tried to catch a closer glimpse – for some fucking stupid reason – it evaporated, leaving nothing but the restless twitching of his shoulders and hands pushing into his chest from all directions.

Owen told Johnson in no uncertain terms that he would choose his next charge. Commander Johnson probably didn’t know what he was doing when he gifted Tallulah. Owen doesn’t repeat Johnson’s mistakes, watching the four candidates for three days. They’re all eerily similar to each other, and it’s beginning to look like a bust when he spots her.

She’s younger than her competitors. Darker. Her eyes are blacker than Tallulah’s ever were, but she’s not cruel or evil. She catches his attention with the way she regards her dinner. The little school of fish is flitting about, twitchy, at the other side of the tank. Silvery flashes catch in his eyes and echo through his head. Owen watches the little dolphin come closer to the fish, turning abruptly to her right. The school twitches back and the dolphin makes another pass, coming closer and closer until the fish have nowhere to go, backed into the corner of the tank. She snaps one fish straight from the school but the rest stay, too petrified to move away.

Owen hasn’t smiled in a long time, and it’s strange on his face. Something starts up in his chest, warming his insides like coffee on a cold day. He squashes the feeling instantly, taking it apart and shoving it into a box at the back of his head. He locks it up and promises he’ll come back to it later. He _probably_ will, he thinks, and watches the dolphin turn to him, regarding him with intelligent eyes.

‘What’s her name?’ he asks Commander Johnson, holding her gaze.

Johnson’s voice is gruff when he answers, ‘Kalila.’ And there’s a hint of a sigh in it. Owen would probably be relieved as well, if he were in Johnson’s shoes. Owen’s been a downright asshole for the past few weeks. He doesn’t regret it, and he has every right to be, but Johnson’s fist won’t be able to resist the siren call of his face any longer. Owen’s not keen on being around when he snaps.

‘Okay,’ Owen says, ‘I’ll take her. But I promise you this,’ he growls, voice low. It’s _way_ past the border of insubordination and encroaching on court martial territory, so he reins it in. Hot tar still bubbles in his lungs, kindling crackling in his throat, yet he sounds downright cordial. ‘I will not be disregarded again. You listen to my recommendations or I leave.’

‘No more incompetent techs,’ Johnson affirms, like he’s checking bread off of his shopping list.

Owen makes the right choice. Kalila is good. Great, even. She’s smart, always pestering him to teach her something new. They spend hours in the ocean each day, Kalila squealing happily as she jumps through the boat’s wake. Owen enjoys her company, the solid dependability of her. She’s not like Tallulah. She doesn’t disappear for large stretches of time and she always does what Owen trains her for. Owen asks her to go left and she does, trusting him. Asking Tallulah to go left never ended well – she would either go with no hint of resistance or veer wildly in whichever direction she pleased. Kalila connects with Owen, and they share something. But he doesn’t leave a piece of his soul nestled beneath her dorsal fin and she doesn’t mark him as hers. They are a team, yet they aren’t family. And it’s good: better than Tallulah. Owen goes into this with eyes open, ready. He rarely lets emotion show, always staying calm. He is stern with his training, repeating maneuvers until they are executed to perfection. Kalila picks it up so quickly, and she always asks for more. It’s in her high keen when they return to the ocean each day. It’s not _what advanture are we embarking on today_. It’s _what will you teach me today?_ Owen is not blind any more. He sees her, every bit of her, and he’s ready. He doesn’t let his superiors rush her into the field.

It pays off. Owen takes her on a dozen ops, locating mines and, on one eventful mission, even a handful of troops in the water. Kalila executes her maneuvers with relish, proud of her achievements but never cocky. Owen makes sure to keep her humble. And they work together, saving the lives of an entire submarine crew when Kalila locates a mine with radar-shielded casing. Three years after Tallulah, with sixteen missions under their belt, their luck runs out.

It started with his commanding officer saying, ‘Thank you, Lieutenant, we’ll take this intelligence into consideration.’ _That_ rang the first alarm bells, and it all went downhill from there. His CO resists all attempts to change his mind, disregarding Owen’s advice. ‘You’re a dolphin trainer, Grady,’ he says, drawling thick and intent. ‘You don’t know shit about what it’s _really_ like in the Navy.’

Owen swallows his rage too late, and his unit ships out on the transport. He can’t remember much of what happened, and not in any clarity. There are flashes of orange and the hiss of steam past the yelling in his ears. Red seeping into the foam. Churning blood and metal chunks clinking on the command ship. Rubber in his nose, screaming on his scalp. Intestines made of stone. Kalila’s high screaming slicing through his mind. Floating freely above the clouds, watching it all happen from above. The spill of red down his shirt, hidden by the Navy uniform. Kalila’s nose quivering under shaking hands and are those his hands? Blood smeared on grey skin. Points of pain in his ribs and he’s not sure what’s real anymore.

There’s one thing he does remember clearly. A hand bumping against the side of the boat, limp. Owen reaches down to it, to haul up an unconscious body, but he stumbled back. There’s no weight on the end of the still-warm fingers, just the jagged star of severed bones. The hand is heavy in his own, but it should be heavier. Tiny shards of metal slice the skin like a cheese grater, blood sluicing from the gaps. The limb isn’t bleeding any more. Water slides off of it, taking blood and broken flesh. Red wisps drip from his fingers into the water below it. The sharks will be all over the place in less than five minutes. The glint of silver catches his attention and he looks down again, sees the ring still on the hand’s finger. It’s plain, indented slightly with an engraving that Owen can’t see past the blurriness in his eyes. Owen’s clutching a left hand between his own, and all he can think is that it’s fucking ironic. His CO should have gone left, should have trusted Owen, even though he isn’t a real soldier, compared to them. The helmsman pulled too far to the right, and Owen is left with nothing but the feel of cooling flesh slipping against his own and the acid eating his stomach, crawling up through his oesophagus.

Then people are all around him, taking the hand, and everything is a blur. His eyes won’t work. His lungs probably work because he’d be dead if they hadn’t. Owen manages to load Kalila, confused and scared and hurt, onto the ship. The vets take one look at her, pronounce _rib pierced a lung_ and _we have to do something_ and _there’s nothing we can do_ and _we need to put her out of her misery_. Owen doesn’t remember the light dying from her eyes. He remembers the shattering of his sternum and the tearing in his chest. He remembers the vet’s pitying eyes. He remembers the disgusting emptiness of the tank and in his gut. Remembers staring at vast space and having no echolocation to tell him what was there.

He doesn’t sleep for fifty-five hours, adrenaline dripping steadily into his bloodstream. Owen doesn’t see her. Her eyes don’t follow him and his mind can’t conjure the flash of sun on light grey skin. She’s on his mind but she’s not in his eyes. And it leaves a disgusting liquid at the back of his throat. Owen’s mind whirls rapidly and doesn’t stay in one place for too long, flitting idly from one thought to the next. He’s a fragile sparrow, startling at the hint of action. He looks down his arms, just to see he still has fingers. His biceps are there but he can’t feel the scrape of fabric on skin, and his shoulders are being dragged down to the center of the earth. His teeth itch, gums crawling. It’s the insistent stabbing of his chest that pushes him to sink his teeth into his own hand, just to see if it still hurts. If he’s still alive, somewhere in this fucked-up shell of useless emotions and redundant organs. Pain laces up his tendons, reaching into his ribs. Blood blossoms on his tongue, coppery at the back of his tender throat. It’s not enough. _Fuck_. It’s not _enough_.

Nothing is, anymore.

They make him a Commander, like a jump in rank will solve everything. Like an empty title won’t tear at his conscience and extra money will fill the hole in his pelvis. Like extra respect will erase the image of a flayed hand between his palms and the slip of wet flesh and diluted blood on his fingers.

It doesn’t. Owen turns to his friends, the ones he has left after his unit got blown to bits thanks to their CO’s stubbornness. He tries to sneak off to drink, but Lieutenant Cole Marin watches him. His eyes are dark and serious, and his smiles are gone. Owen can’t drink to forget, any more. Can’t lose himself in the haze of alcohol. Johnson keeps him from the potential addiction. Marin throws out his whisky stash. The Lieutenant shadows him, always watching. Marin is soft green eyes and gentle lines, the only one who stays close while Owen grieves. Any friends he had are gone now, sick of dealing with his endless shit, and he doesn’t miss them. They never saw past what he wanted them to see.

Marin does. Owen remembers sitting at a table three and a half years ago, willing the guy to go the fuck away. Remembers the first hint of seriousness in his eyes and the invitation on his cheekbones. Marin’s grown up since then, finally lost the unfounded enthusiasm. He still loves Eira, still talks about her whenever he can, but it’s different. When he talks now, his eyes are intense and his smile is secretive. Marin grows into his shoulders and outgrows his naivety. He listens to Owen, sits the requisite thirty inches away, and is the best human friend he’s ever had. (And isn’t that sad.)

He sees the way Cole watches him. Sees the interest barely concealed by the thin veneer of friendship. And Owen tries to forget. Tries to lose Tallulah’s bright eyes and Kalila’s slate grey skin, tries to leave them behind him. He just can’t shake them. Without alcohol, he doesn’t know what to fucking _do_. Doesn’t know how to get rid of his aching lungs short of ripping them out. Owen doesn’t remember how to forget.

Marin is there. He asks again, and Owen goes to his bed. He still doesn’t like men, but he needs to forget. Needs to lose himself in the feel of skin on skin, and this is all he has.


	18. Chapter 18

The carpet is clean beneath his socked feet. He’s not sure why, when all he’s done for the past two days is pace. By now, there should be a furrow worn into the floor, a curving trail starting by the bed and stopping abruptly at the window. A week and a half ago, Owen paced this very spot, dirt and blood-stained boots landing softly on the carpet. He paced silently, shoulders trembling and arms twitching uncontrollably. His ears rang, piercing high pitched whining spearing through his head. And that was okay, because he couldn’t hear the endless litany in his own mind, could pretend to push away the weight of his lungs, the spasming of his leaden diaphragm. It leached into his bloodstream, contaminating his kidneys. He resisted the urge to rip them out of his body and crush them in his hands – he had to keep one, at least. The thought of squeezing the life from his own flesh caught in his throat, a thrill running from his stomach to the cradle of his pelvis. It would be so easy. Something was headbutting his chest, urging him forward. So he paced instead of tearing at the walls, dug his fingers into his biceps and left ten points of pain to counteract the ache in his gut. Pressure built in his head, pounding through his veins, and his lungs seized. The ground was too soft, too plush, and he couldn’t hear the vicious crack of his own steps. Storms spiraled inside of him, gathering together to form a tropical monsoon and buffeting through his system, leaving splintered trees in their wake.

He’d hated the carpet then. It burned low in his intestines, ever-present. The simple sound of footprints as the only way of grounding himself, despite Claire’s eyes tracking him across the room, shivering like silk over his skin. Now, he’s thankful she doesn’t hear him. Thankful that she won’t know he hasn’t slept in two days. Thankful that she’s finally getting some sleep of her own, even though Owen’s restless lungs and fucking inconsiderate brain won’t let him rest.

Cool air shivers up his arms, wreathing around his tendons. Owen stops at the window, pushing his palms into the glass. It’s warm, seeping heat into his skin. His palms itch, kidneys crying out for the scrape of scaly skin on his palms, not the clean, exact glass slipping with his sweat. It’s completely smooth, no hint of flaws, and it goes down wrong, settling oddly in his stomach. Nothing is perfect – Owen learned that the hard way. When something is, it’s probably too good to be true. Echo’s scar and displaced jaw marred her skin, a symbol of lessons learned, but it wasn’t just a physical mark. To the pack, her scars meant something important. Became more than just a humiliating reminder. The odd set of her jaw was a triumph – she may not have succeeded in her bid for dominance, but Echo held her own.

Delta was always looking for trouble. As a baby, she spent most of her time harassing the nursery staff. Whatever time she had left was spent cuddling up to Owen, nipping curiously at his hair. As much as he always wanted to, he never lay down on the floor of the nursery and let them climb all over him. He kept a watchful eye on his girls, stitches in his forearm pulling insistently. Blue’s attack was a wake-up-call. Owen learned a very important lesson that day: do not turn your back on a raptor. And when he stopped to think about _why_ she would attack him, he turned to the pack for answers. Saw Blue, always present, always leading her sisters from the front.

Owen spent his life leading from the back. Being the guy behind-the-scenes, who only ever gets mentioned in the credits for one measly line when the actors get Oscars and all of the recognition. Blue went for his face as soon as his concentration lapsed. Delta’s head used to swing around suddenly, fixing him with hungry eyes whenever he had trouble pushing down an emotion. Growls would erupt completely unbidden from Echo’s chest. Lead from the front, or not at all. Raptors don’t understand the concept of armchair generals. Owen adapted, as he always did. He led from the front, and always watched his girls. He loves them – _loved_ , and his stomach rips open, spilling acid over his guts at the need for correction – but they had claws meant for disembowelment, and Owen was fond of keeping his internal organs.

He’s not now.

Delta used to nip at his hair, trying to catch the wisps curling around his ears and the base of his neck. She gained a long score down her flank, courtesy of Blue’s sickle claw. Owen attention was diverted to Echo and Charlie’s antics for a split second and she fastened her teeth on his neck, nibbling lightly. Looking back, he knows she could have killed him and he would never have felt it. Delta was just playing with him, as she always did, but with more of an edge. Owen ripped her off of him, setting her down roughly. As spindly as they might look, the raptors were hardy, and she did not fool Owen. He scolded her with rough hands and a harsh voice, pushing down the sudden spike of terror in his stomach lining. Blue reinforced him by sinking her claws into Delta’s side.

When she looked up, her orange eyes screamed _retribution_ , and her little snort said _presumptuous little fuck_.

Charlie was never a troublemaker, and she was always happy with her position in the pack. Owen spent the most time with her, outside of Blue, purely because she wanted it. Delta and Echo loved the feel of his hands gliding over scaled, imperfect skin, yet they were plenty satisfied after ten minutes of contact. Blue spent up to two hours before returning to her leadership duties, ensuring her sisters weren’t too enthusiastic in their play. Charlie stayed the longest, spending hours with his hands tracing the lines of her nose. Hours breathing in the scent of him, committing him to memory. He touched her until his palms ached, skin raw and red. She rumbled at him as he talked to her, losing himself in the rhythm of meaningless words and raptor purrs. And he spent an extra hour with her one Wednesday afternoon, when she crunched a wrench and split her jaw open, pressing the area around the stitches to dispel the itch. A jagged scar sprayed out from the left side of her jaw, and she loved the slide of his fingers over damaged skin, after that.

Blue had too many scars to count, but she was the most beautiful of them all.

Owen’s throat aches, and he’s bound to his body with haphazard stitches, ready to burst at any moment. Light wreathes through the city like mist, hazy and distant, creeping around the buildings far below his feet. The muscles in his arms shudder, hands deliciously warm in counterpoint. The air conditioner is turned up, humming quietly in the background. Claire likes to sleep in cold conditions, drawing the quilt around her ears and snuggling in to the pillow. Owen turns back to her, swallowing the emotional bile at the back of his throat. He can barely see her, only the vivid splash of her hair and the curve of her shoulder, hidden by the thick quilt. His hands itch to touch something soft, something yielding, but he keeps them on the glass, ignoring the desperate pull of his chest and the desire simmering low in his pelvis. He can’t do that to her, not when his pack is leaning by the door, stuffed full. Not when he is about to pull his boots on and don his vest, when he pushes the slew of emotions back into his vault.

He looks for imperfections in the glass. It’s what he does. Something snares in his chest, trapped, as he presses his face to the window in an effort to spot a fault. His lungs swirl, catching on his ribs, and his diaphragm spasms. His kidneys are starting to burn when he finally spots a long, shallow scratch, barely visible against the hazy light of the city. The twisted mess loosens, relinquishing his organs. Air rushes back into his lungs, as much as it can under the weight of the past week and a half. Under the knowledge that his pack is gone. That he can’t fix things, no matter how hard he tries.

His stomach tugs him towards the bed, and it’s like he can feel Claire’s skin on his fingertips from across the room. He just wants to sleep. Wants to forget. Wants to lose himself in the slide of flesh on flesh, but it didn’t work so well last time. Wants to curl up with her and let her warm him, get rid of the ice in his bones and the rips in his heart. Wants to be worthy.

Owen never gets what he wants.

He steps away from the window, tugging on his boots. The leather is familiar on his skin, stained with blood and dirt as they are. He’s not sure whether they’ll still be brown when he comes back to Claire. ( _If_ he comes back.) Owen slips on his vest, settling it over his shoulders. It’s familiar, snug against the base of his neck, weighing just enough to make itself known but not enough to suck him into the earth, like his rank did, once.

Owen doesn’t come close to the bed. He ignores the lurch in his chest that informs him he’s a terrible person. Ignores the burning in his intestines when he can’t see her face behind the thick quilt.

Instead, he follows the clench of his lungs and the push in his chest, finally letting his legs take him where they want to go. Owen slings the pack over his shoulder, opens the door, and slips away, desperately hoping Claire will believe he’s going camping. Hoping she won’t hate him when she finds out the truth.

Pressure builds in his gut with every step he takes. He’s so close to Isla Nublar, and he’s ready to fight for his pack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, it's actually August 21st in Australia as I post this chapter but AO3 is refusing to acknowledge that I live in a real timezone. Luckily, I still love it.


	19. Chapter 19

The jungle is dinosaur territory.

Twigs crunch under Owen’s feet as he steps over a moss-coated log. The sound snaps out into the trees, bouncing off of trunks and branches like a siren call. His stomach shifts uneasily and he instantly drops lower, leg bent. The Navy may not have sent him into the jungle, but they certainly trained him for it. Survival Training 101: keep your footprint to a minimum. Don’t give the enemy something to track you with. Duck low-hanging branches and go around shrubbery to avoid breaking leaves. Owen’s worked with more than a few SEALs – he knows the gig.

He just wasn’t trained to evade dinosaurs. It wasn’t a part of basic, and he kind of wishes it was. Owen knows about animals, knows the curve of a dolphin’s back like the palm of his hand, the flick of a seal’s tail. He speaks the complicated language of head tilts and claw-twitches. Knows the feel of a raptor’s ribs against his fingers. The scrape of fern-striped skin catching on callouses. Owen doesn’t know much any more, but _this_ he knows.

No one taught him how to shake a dinosaur off of his tail, and they certainly didn’t teach him how to track a raptor. Owen is no slouch – he kept up with mischievous raptors for three years – and as much as he likes to pretend he’s the generic Navy washout, he’s not. Barry grew to understand that, and Claire saw it with her own eyes. Out here, the jungle ringing in his ears and sweat coiling on his skin, none of that means a thing. His brains might keep him alive for longer than a cow, but Owen is the weakest creature on this island. He knows it, and the dinosaurs know it. No matter how pitiful the Rex’s eyesight is, her sense of smell is a hundred times keener than Owen’s. No amount of unsnapped twigs or false trails will fool her. They won’t fool Blue, either. But then, nothing fools her.

The jungle is dense. The ground is completely obscured by fallen leaves and ferns, crunchy brown foliage overlapped by squishy green. There has to be thousands of layers like this, Owen thinks. The jungle outlives its inhabitants.

Just like Owen outlives his charges.

He pushes the toxic thought aside, concentrating on his steps. Layer upon layer of rotting leaves snap and shift under his boots, and he can’t keep quiet, no matter how hard he tries. If he were Blue, he would move without a sound, ghosting through the jungle without leaving a trace.

And that makes the clear footprints and drag marks tug low in his gut. He spent a week and a half wondering whether Blue was even alive, and now he’s not sure anymore. Blue’s a fighter, always has been, and he has so much faith in her it surprises him. But she’s also lost her pack, and she’s leaving a trail a mile wide. Something lodges ice-cold in his throat and he stops, just to rid himself of the incessant snapping of twigs underfoot.

The trickle of water wreathes into his senses, calling sweetly to him. It’s about time he refills his canteen, but he doesn’t want to lose Blue’s trail. Owen stands, sun dappling through the canopy and dancing along his skin. The little spots of warmth seep into his bones, and the lump is still embedded deep in his throat.

The crunch starts up again, and Owen freezes, listening.

The footsteps are huge, rumbling out through the jungle, and the knowledge snaps into Owen’s brain. His feet burst into action, carrying him towards the stream without prior consultation. The crunching is getting louder, but it’s rapidly obscured by the deep thrum of his heartbeat pounding through his temples. It leaps into his throat, hanging there precariously, and he stumbles to a stop at the bank, looking for something, _anything_.

His boot sinks in to deep black mud, and it clings thickly to his boot. Owen’s hands are in it instantly, grabbing great big handfuls and slopping it onto his face and chest, coating his shirt with as much as he can scoop. The Rex is getting closer, her gigantic footsteps finally louder than his own heart. It beats a tattoo into his ribs as Owen’s eyes rove over the immediate area. It takes him too long, and his hands jitter nervously, breath shuddering from between his lips. His eyes stutter on a fallen log, embedded in the muck. It’s good enough, and Owen hurls himself towards it, scrabbling desperately as he compresses his shoulders. It’s a tight fit and he ends up squeezing his arms tightly to his sides, bent at the elbows with his palms facing upward. He twists his head to the side, fighting the lurch in his spleen as he catches sight of her.

Her legs are huge and powerful, even though one drags a little. But she takes long sure strides, and Owen takes a deep breath, holding it. The jungle is suddenly quiet around him, and he can hear the breath shuddering through Rexy’s nose. She’s looking for him. _She’s looking for him_.

He can’t see anything past the swell of her belly, but he doesn’t need to. She’s coming closer, and he hopes all of this will be enough. That he didn’t come back here only to leave Blue alone, in the end.

An anchor digs into his gut, hooking deep. The pain pierces through his stomach, spilling caustic acid into his bloodstream. Glass shards embed in his throat, ripping through the skin like it’s paper. He swallows around the phantom feel of blood thick in his mouth, pushing down the squeeze of panicked lungs and the frantic staccato of his heart. His head pounds, throbbing so hard his vision floods with black spots. The log above him swims in and out of focus. Emotion scrabbles wildly at his ribs, gouging viciously in an effort to escape. It’s trying to crawl up through his mouth and nose and eyes and it takes everything he has to stay hidden.

He pushes it down. He pushes down _everything_. Pushes down the feel of Blue’s stripe of his fingertips, the sound of her rumbling in his ears. Pushes down the orange of her eyes and the gentle sound of her breath, viciously tamping down his memory of her. Takes the tingling in his guts and the spaces between his ribs and quashes it, compacting it into a tiny box and setting it all aside. Shoves down the visceral burst of terror shooting through his veins, stabbing into his lungs and squeezing his heart. Pushes down the thick blaze of blood through his system, the ice and fire in his brain.

He pushes it all down until he is nothing but physical sensation. Nothing but the frantic race of his heart against his lungs. The ache of abused ribs. Arms shuddering as he tries to keep them still. Slick mud on his clothes and in his hair and staining his skin. Air screaming through his nose. Lungs seizing around dust spores, flooding with the taste of overturned dirt and rotting flesh. Scars turning purple on his hands, itching like fire crawling across his skin.

Rexy isn’t as close as Indominus had been, two weeks ago. She doesn’t come all the way over to his hiding place, deterred by the slippery rocks and constantly-flowing water. But he can smell her, the cloying trendils of bone marrow falling from her mouth. Then there’s the salt-copper scent of infection, and the scent of burned skin. Owen should have guessed she had an infection. He saw Rexy and the Indominus duke it out, but he hadn’t realized what it meant. He can’t see much more than a hint of her underbelly, yet he knows the gouges down her side will be red and yellow, inflamed. Just as surely as he knows she’ll survive this. Owen saw the scars from her last run-in with humans, and he knows how old she is. Rexy is still here, and she’s not going anywhere soon.

His lungs scream desperately for air, begging him to take a full breath. Owen squashes the instinct beneath the proverbial boot, willing his twitching arms to stay still.

And through it all, one thought leaps into his mind.

_This is all Vic Hoskins’ fault_.

Anger bubbles to the surface, pressure building with each step Rexy takes. The _boom-crunch_ fades from his hearing. He’s left with the gentle burbling of the stream and the endless insect song.

Everything bursts out of him at once. His throat rumbles with vicious snarls and his hands _thud_ on the wood above his eyes. Splinters and dust rain down onto his face, but he doesn’t care.

He wishes he could put a disclaimer on this whole fuck up. Something like _Raptor Release courtesy of Vic Hoskins, Mega Dick_. With that smiling shit emoji tagged onto the end, just for added emphasis. If it weren’t for him, the Indominus never would have become an issue. Blue wouldn’t be out here, alone and at risk. Her sisters would still be alive, and they would be safe in their paddock. He wants to revive the guy so he can torture him to death, without a hint of mercy. But he can’t, and Masrani Global won’t believe such an eloquent argument.

Owen opens his palms and scrapes them viciously over the wood until he can feel his skin again. The scars wrapping around his fingers are turning pink again, the itching slowing to a simmer beneath ruined skin. Hot, humid air shifts lazily as he lets out a deep breath, head thudding back into the mud. He’s gonna smell like shit after this, but he’s alive.

He’s alive.

Owen’s not sure how he feels about that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are getting closer~
> 
> What do you think is gonna happen?


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while since I posted a chapter, so here you go!

The shrill screech of a mobile phone pulls him back to his body.

Owen blinks, patting down the pockets of his BDUs. The sun is too warm on his skin, turning it a bright pink. His uniform scrapes on his arms like sandpaper, tearing at tender flesh. His scalp itches, his fingers clenching with the need to scrape the hair off his head. It’s not quiet in the harbor – not at all – but it fades into the background, swept away like wreckage in a storm. The honk of commercial freighters and the slap of sails against rigging should dominate his every thought, yet… Owen doesn’t think much anymore.

When he finds his phone, he’s greeted with the completely unhelpful message _Private number._ And that’s odd, Owen is sure. It floats up to him from somewhere beneath his lungs, skimming the surface of his mind. No one calls him on this number, not when he lives on a military base. He keeps the phone out of obligation – his mum made him promise to keep it so she could send daily messages. They used to be about so many different things, but now he’ll finish his days with a brief little comment followed by a disturbingly appropriate emoji. As much as he loves his mum, he regrets showing her how to use the little graphics last Christmas. Owen couldn’t resist the pleading in his mum’s eyes and the happiness in his dad’s cheeks, and now his mum spends her time texting him _emojis_. Sure, it never fails to put a smile on his face, but it’s also _weird_.

Owen pushes the accept button, bringing the phone up to his ear. ‘Hello?’ he asks, voice tinny in his own ears. It’s completely flat, emotionless, and a heavy boulder flips in his stomach. Is that his voice? It can’t be. He’s always been good at pretending. Always been good at putting on an act for outsiders, keeping them at bay. Owen breathes deeply through his nose, relishing the sting of salt in his nostrils.

‘ _Commander Owen Grady_?’ a voice asks, accented voice tinkling over his eardrums.

‘Speaking,’ Owen replies. He can’t be bothered to say anything else.

‘ _My name is Simon Masrani, and I would like to speak to you about a project I’m working on_.’ And kudos to the guy, ‘cause he doesn’t sound the slightest bit intimidated.

That’s interesting. Owen’s curiosity piques, and for the first time in days, he returns to his own body. Feels more than pain on his skin and in his chest. Focuses instead on the curl of toes in his boots and the scrape of fabric on chest hair. He drags his eyes back into the foreground, glancing at his own hand. It’s not the familiar lines of a sailboat or the bulk of a commercial vessel, and he stops for a moment, guts flipping over and over inside him. He hasn’t been able to think straight for days, and he hasn’t been able to feel the crush of grief in his chest. He was just _there,_ doing nothing but watching. Now, his eyes finally fix on the flaws in his skin. Gradually, he can see the skin of his palm, the scar under his index finger, the peel of sunburned flesh. Owen’s been staring at boats for so long he’s not sure what else to do.

‘Didn’t think you worked with animals,’ Owen says, and the rumble in his throat tethers him to this spot. He may not be able to move, but he’s not being blown away. It’s good enough.

‘ _I own Jurassic World, Commander Grady_ ,’ Masrani says, as though he has to repeat this daily. ‘ _As such, I have a vested interest in dinosaurs and their care. To provide this care, I need the best and the brightest. Your resume speaks for itself, Commander. You come highly recommended, for your treatment of your animals. I have also been told that you are a natural_.’

‘Not sure if you’ve noticed,’ Owen growls, ice dumping over him in a heartbeat, ‘but my charges are dead.’

‘ _And both times were not your doing_ ,’ Masrani replies, like it’s that simple. Maybe it is to him, to a person who has never been completely and utterly responsible for their animal, but it’s not so easy for Owen. ‘ _Your recommendations and advice were expressly ignored. You made a sound judgment call, but no one heeded it. How would you like the chance to be listened to?_ ’

‘How?’ Owen is not going to let himself feel hope.

‘ _I’m in the process of conducting an experiment. Behavioral assessment and intelligence tracking. Testing familial bonds and actions_.’

As much as he hates it, Owen is definitely intrigued now. ‘Which dinosaur?’

‘ _Velociraptor_.’

Owen almost chokes on thin air, and he doesn’t know why he’s surprised. ‘Velociraptor? As in, the thing that hunted people through buildings nearly twenty years ago?’ A laugh forces its way out of his throat, mangled and wrong, sliding thickly on his tongue. ‘And you want to show them to the public. You’re insane.’

‘ _The velociraptors are not for show, Commander. These creatures will be under your direct supervision. Training is your prerogative. Whatever you say will be carefully listened to. Commander, I can give you full control. The raptors will be yours, and I will do nothing but ask for weekly reports and perhaps discuss your progress. Velociraptors are dangerous creatures, and we do not want to rush their training. You know this more than anyone_.’

He wonders how Masrani knows Owen needs to be in control. How nothing in his life has been controllable lately. How he got Owen’s number in the first place.

In the end, he doesn’t even need forty-eight hours. He hands in his resignation in hour forty. Maybe something here will make it all worth the effort. Maybe he can make a difference.

Owen will never know until he goes, so he does. He packs his belongings into a single duffel bag, doesn’t glance back at the room that’s been his home for nearly seven years. The duffel is heavy in his hands, pulling him into the earth. There’s nothing important in it, only two pictures of the animals he couldn’t save. The frames burn holes through the thin canvas bag and into his chest, searing his lungs. Owen wishes he could let them go, leave the picture of Tallulah like he left his first girlfriend. Smash the picture of Kalila the way he smashed the window to make it to a concert when he was grounded. He promised himself he wouldn’t let Kalila’s death ruin his life like Tallulah’s had, and now he’s carrying her picture next to his underwear.

Owen doesn’t even need to write his resignation letter. He simply slips it out of his jacket when he is beckoned into Johnson’s office, standing stiffly at attention. Johnson eyes are hard flint, the muscles in his jaw so rigid they might break any second. ‘I was wondering how long it would take,’ Johnson finally says, making no move to accept the envelope in Owen’s outstretched hand.

‘Sir,’ Owen acknowledges. His hand is shaking, fingers juddering on the piece of paper. He wills himself not to thrust it forward, or shove it down the base commander’s throat.

Johnson’s grimace says _I know what you’re doing._ His arms are crossed, fingers digging in to his biceps. There’s a wealth of information on his face, but Owen has lost the ability to interpret it. He’s floating on the surface of his own mind, looking in. A roiling mass of reds and blues and purples glares back at him, reaching for him. They are caught by a thin layer of glass, screaming in frustrated rage, and all he can do is watch. Wait. He finds them oddly mesmerizing, and yet he is floating freely. Untethered. One day the glass will shatter. The decks will flood. He’ll be caught in the middle of it all, wishing for blue skies and calm seas.

After an eternity, Johnson finally says, ‘You never stand on ceremony.’ _You can’t obey orders._ Watches Owen closely. ‘Who offered you a job?’

Owen doesn’t have to say anything. Could just grind out a clipped ‘sir’ and be on his way. Could slam the envelope down on his desk and rage, feel the satisfying crunch of glass and face beneath his knuckles. Could just stand there, waiting. Instead, he says, ‘Masrani Global.’

Johnson fills in the gaps instantly, as always. ‘Jurassic World,’ he states. It’s not up for discussion. ‘Dinosaurs.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Owen says. ‘Dinosaurs.’

The envelope slips from his fingers, and the weight of it vanishes from his shoulders. He’s free to go, to catch his private flight to Isla Nublar, to stop repeating his mistakes, but the look in Johnson’s eyes stops him.

‘Good luck, Commander Grady,’ says Johnson. ‘And do yourself a favour. Don’t give them real names. It helps.’

Owen ignores the meaning of the words, the weight of years and grief behind them, and says, ‘yes, sir.’

A month later, he’s summoned to the labs. He’s been working closely with Henry Wu, asking as many questions as the man will let him. He asks about raptor intelligence, about the incident twenty-two years ago. He asks about the genetic repair, about what to expect. ‘This subspecies of raptor is different to the ones I hatched twenty years ago,’ says Wu, attention barely focused on Owen. ‘We won’t know everything about them until they’ve fully matured.’ Owen stops asking questions after that, and spends more time at the building site for the future raptor paddock.

When he gets to the lab, Henry Wu is standing by the incubator, taking notes. Owen’s grinning at him stupidly, a question at the tip of his tongue, when he realizes what’s wrong.

The lighting is off. There’s no bright warmth radiating from the incubator, no light at all. He knows what it means, knows it in the core of him, but Wu’s words still hit him in the gut like a fucking freight train, smearing his entrails over the tracks on his spine. ‘There was an anomaly in the genetic coding,’ Wu says, not even sparing him a glance. ‘The eggs weren’t developing properly.’

The colour of them hasn’t changed, but they still don’t look right. He’ll never get to meet Vanessa and Camilla and Isobel, and the thought stabs into him, twisting viciously. ‘So you killed them?’ he chokes out.

‘We don’t want malformed animals,’ Wu tells him simply. Owen storms out of the room before his fist becomes too closely acquainted with his face.

The second nest hatches, to Owen’s great relief. The beta is a feisty little thing, all sass and barely contained violence, but he calls her Adaline, because she’s a lady. She sinks her teeth into his wrist and holds on with dogged determination, leaving a scar, and it’s one he carries proudly. Marley and Mirell hatched at exactly the same time, and they’re as close to twins as a raptor can be. They are always together, always watching each other. But when things get ugly – which happens way too often for Owen’s comfort – they go for the other’s neck without a second thought. He can never tell whether they love or hate each other, and it settles wrong in his lungs.

Owen only has a week with them. Only a week before the lab assistant came to work when she shouldn’t have, bringing a nasty cold with her. Adaline doesn’t eat for two days, her eyes wide and flighty. She’s wheezing when Owen finally leaves for the night. He’s back within four hours, armed with a thermometer and Henry Wu on his speed dial.

Adaline had the same idea as him. She’s curled in the corner, peaceful, and she never gets up. Blood splatters all around the nursery, staining the white floor red. Mirell still has a snarl on her frozen face, claws embedded in Marley’s hide. Marley’s sickle claw is coated in blood and guts. He doesn’t need the thermometer to tell him they’re too cold. Owen backs out of the soiled nursery and throws up his lungs, hacking into a stinky bin for god-knows-how-long. Five days later, he can still taste bile at the back of his throat, the stench of blood refusing to relinquish his skin.

Owen’s an idiot for naming the next batch of eggs before they’ve even hatched. There are four of them now, and Wu is certain it will stabilize the pack bond. That the Marley and Mirell incident will never happen again. ‘They were left alone,’ he says, like it’s an adequate explanation. (And fucking hell, it really is.)

Jemima’s egg is the largest, all speckled and patterned like an impressionist painting. She’s beautiful when she emerges, skin patched and striped randomly. He spends hours sitting near her but never touching. She snaps viciously when he reaches out, preferring to be left to her own devices. Yet she’ll watch him with apologetic eyes, and he knows she wasn’t trying to hurt him.

Hannah’s egg is beige, and she is just as delicately graceful. She likes to be close to Owen, rubbing her light brown stripes along his arms, and she always greets him with a little too much enthusiasm. But she’s shy, refusing to play with her sisters, and she’s scared of new people. She’s too small for his liking.

Cassandra is a completely different story. Her egg was plain, and she’s a complete contradiction. Cassie is fire and colour and motion, always on the go. She flits between her sisters, all attitude and not-quite-playful nips. She’s always snapping back at her nest-mates, escalating tensions when she should be diffusing them. Owen can never tell whether she wants to impress him or spite him.

Becca is a sweet soul. Her honey gold eyes track him wherever he goes, and she likes to snuggle into his side, rumbling quietly. And for all her beautiful nature, she doesn’t like being around her sisters. Prefers to cuddle up to a blanket in the corner, carving out her own space.

They are all too different. Too contradictory. They don’t attack each other, but they cannot stand to be so close together. The pack bond doesn’t take, and Owen comes in day after day to watch his beautiful girls get thinner and thinner, until even Becca refuses to take her food. In the end, they never leave their respective corners. Owen’s throat has been closed for days when Wu finally calls him. He doesn’t go down to bury them, like he did with the others. Owen’s chest burns, and his sternum is shattered. He spends four days in his bungalow, trying to knit it back together and keep his lungs from spilling onto the floor. He wakes on the fifth day with a disgustingly dry mouth and a wet face, and he ignores it all. His eyes haven’t stopped leaking for a while, after all.

When the next batch hatches, Owen takes Johnson’s advice. The beta, Blue, is hatched separately, and he has a few months with her. Charlie, Delta and Echo come next. It’s familiar, and it doesn’t pull at the makeshift stitches in his chest. He swallows down a tangled mess of emotion and calms himself. Promises he’ll stay objective this time. Promises he won’t fail.


	21. Chapter 21

Owen should stop for the night, but he doesn’t. He just fishes the glowsticks out of the bottom of his pack and uses their meager light to avoid potholes. He doesn’t need to find the torch to stay on Blue’s trail. His stomach is shifting, tugging out from underneath him. Owen stumbles, scraping his palm on a nearby tree as he catches himself. He focuses on the sting of newly healed skin, pushes down the voice scrabbling at his mind. Chokes on it as he tries to swallow. It catches in his throat, digging its claws in stubbornly, gouging mercilessly into tender flesh. Whispers into his ears seductively, coiling around the words. _Blue’s trail is so easy to follow_.

Owen tries to shove it into a box, locking it tightly. He throws away the key, but the box is not airtight. Little trendils seep out, caressing the edge of his mind. The thought stays, bringing bile to the back of his throat, and he can’t shake it. Blue is a master hunter. He’s watched her every day for the past three years. He _knows_ she shouldn’t be leaving a trail. And if she did, he shouldn’t be able to see it in the moonless night. Owen trained her, after all.

His stomach sways dangerously, and he takes a deep breath, pushing away from the tree. His foot slips over a rock, yet he manages to keep his feet. The ground is cast into shades of green and black beneath him, throwing off his depth perception and tingling uneasily down his spine. The crunch of boots on dead leaves shudders through his ears. It’s too loud, echoing around in his head, but there’s nothing he can do. Insects and nocturnal creatures sing to the night, surrounding him in a cacophony of noise, and all he can fucking hear is his own footsteps. Owen drops lower, bending his legs to absorb the impact of his steps. It doesn’t make much of a difference, but he holds the position anyway. Holds the position because it’s familiar. The world is glaring at him, watching him. Eyes track his movements from the shadows, and he crouches. It’s as safe as he can get, out here. He’s running around in the jungle with a useless gun, and a bunch of dinosaurs who can track him with very little effort. Owen is fucking insane, but he’s come to far to give up now. He’s finally found her tail, and he can’t let her go. He never could let anyone go. It’s why he still sleeps with Tallulah’s mischievous grin and Kalila’s bright eyes watching over him.

Owen doesn’t bother looking into the tangled darkness. Instead, he listens to the jungle, soaking in the chaotic mess of insects and mammals. If there were a predator around, he’d know it. Owen has spent most of his life around predators – he’s not psychic or whatever, but he recognizes the signs of nearby hunters. Fortunately for him, the Rex went the other direction and Blue is well ahead of him. All he can hear is the crunch of his boots on layers of foliage, and he keeps moving.

Owen’s feet are long past being sore. He’s spent days on his feet before, on particularly long ops. Basic had him on his feet for days as well, but he’s never walked this far. The soles of his feet are tender, like they’ve been beaten. He’s walking on bruises, sending little shocks of pain shuddering up his spine. His ankles are stiff, knees grinding with every step, but he shakes it off. It’s easy to cast aside the burn in his shins, focusing on the feel of leaves shifting beneath his boots. He has a job to do, and he can’t stop until it’s done.

The world brightens around him, sunlight slanting through the thick canopy of leaves. Owen steps over a log without stumbling, finally able to judge the distance correctly. Around him, animals scramble into their burrows and branches, taking refuge. The light is dim, barely filtering through the dense jungle, but it’s steadily getting brighter. The sky isn’t blue, not yet. It’s a light grey, almost stormy, shot through with hints of pale yellow. A few stars cling stubbornly to the morning light, only fleeting glimpses through patches of canopy. The sun is nowhere to be seen, still doing battle with the night. Even the jungle smells like morning, cool air underpinned by the scent of water, vapor curling tenderly over his bare forearms. It sits in his lungs, pouring down his throat with every breath he takes.

The sun is weak on his skin when he finally emerges from the forest. The grass is long, swaying in the early morning breeze. Long strands have been crushed underthe weight of huge dinosaurs, and blood splatters across vivid green. When Owen glances up, he sees the corpse of an Apatosaurus, flies burrowing into her skin. It’s wrinkled and grey, completely lifeless, and it hits Owen in the chest. He approaches the remains, and he’s not sure why. He can’t do anything for her, not now. If she were smaller, he would dig a hole and bury her body, giving her all the respect she deserves. When he first came to Jurassic World, he used to sit in the Apatosaurus stables when he had spare time, just watching the huge herbivores interact. It started off as a research endeavor – the Apatosaurus were the closest to pack animals Jurassic World had, and he needed to see them in action. Owen viewed all available footage of the raptors from both Isla Nublar and Isla Sorna, but it wasn’t enough. Seeing footage of an animal in an extreme situation wasn’t an indicator of their behavior in a relaxed, natural setting. So Owen went to the Apatosaurus keeper, begging to be allowed to sit close and observe. She’d been a little hesitant, but he talked her around, using the patented Owen Grady charm. His COs might not have liked it, back in his days in the military, but they couldn’t stop him any more. He’d watched the Apatosaurus interact, watched the matriarch guide the herd, and he’d learned. Owen was always learning, even after he stopped going to visit the Apatosaurs and gained his own pack. The girls were always keen to teach him a lesson, at any rate.

Owen’s head pounds when he comes close. She’s so beautiful, even in death, but the stench is clawing at him, splitting his head open. Vomit rushes into his throat, pushing at every semblance of restraint he has. He swallows it viciously, turning his eyes away from the flies buzzing incessantly around her corpse.

A flash of cobalt flits over his vision.

Owen almost overlooks it before he drags his eyes back. He’s so certain he’s seeing things, so certain he’s dreaming, that he’s been tracking her so long he’s imagining her blue stripe, the tinges of green on her skin. Owen stares, not even bothering to check his surroundings. He stares and he _hopes_. Something rises in him, grasping his sternum and pulling it from his body. It’s light and buoyant, and it’s a relief to have it gone, but the space isn’t supposed to be empty. Blazing pain floods into him, burning just below his diaphragm.

It’s Blue.

She’s curled up in the grass a few meters away from the Apatosaur corpse, tail tucked beneath her foreclaws. She looks so tiny, folded in on herself, and Owen’s lungs crack open, spilling oxygen everywhere. For one terrifying moment, he can’t breathe, and he takes a fumbling step towards her. It’s Blue. She’s alive.

_She’s alive_.

Maybe it’s the crunch of his boot on dirt and grass that wakes her. Maybe it’s the shuddering gasp searing up his throat, and maybe it’s the scent of him, all relief tinged with exhaustion. He doesn’t know. All he knows is that she’s looking at him, orange eyes focused on him impossibly. And he’s been here for days, searched this island incessantly, believed she was alive for even longer, but he’s never accepted it. A rib slides back into place, and he doesn’t even realize it was missing until the aching emptiness isn’t there any more. He takes a deep breath, and it finally fills his lungs. Oxygen kicks into his bloodstream, and he can _breathe_.

Blue’s eyes are on him, unwavering. Her nostrils flare, taking in his scent, and it’s so familiar. The stitches in his chest pull relentlessly, but he can’t cry now. Can’t let water spill down his cheeks when it might obscure his view of her.

‘Blue,’ he says quietly, and there are so many things in his voice he doesn’t know where to begin. So many emotions tangled up in his guts that he doesn’t know how to separate them. He whistles to her softly, the whistle of an alpha. ‘Hey girl,’ he whispers, taking a step toward her. _The alpha is back_ , he chants to himself.

Blue chitters quietly to him, tilting her head. It’s the same head tilt from two weeks ago, the same question. He shook his head, then, because it wasn’t the right time. Because he needed to help the refugees. Because Claire needed him. Because he had to help with the cleanup. And it was all fucking pointless, in the end. It helped no one, and now Blue is looking at him with betrayal in her eyes. She remembers his answer. The subtle shake of his head.

Not this time.

Owen smiles at her, keening highly. It’s the keen he’s seen so many times. It used to slip from Charlie’s lips when she caught sight of him. Fall from Delta’s mouth when she came back after a day of exploring the paddock. Ring from behind Echo’s teeth when she brought her latest catch to Owen and Blue, the muscles in her thighs jumping with excitement. He’s heard it from Blue, as well, felt it in her throat when her skin slid against his on lazy Wednesday afternoons. This is the first time he’s greeted her. He sings for her, high and gentle, holding his palms out.

Blue rises gracefully, stepping hesitantly towards him. His eyes itch to trace the line of her cobalt stripe, but he holds her gaze instead. Watches the exhausted intelligence beside her pupil and the orange leaking out from the center of her. Holds his hand out, not moving a muscle. Her nostrils flare as she takes him in, and she’s so close. Her breath washes over his fingers, caressing him tantalizingly. She watches him like he watches her, not sure what he’s going to do. For a moment, Owen’s chest threatens to erupt into panic. No. He will not panic, because that will drive her away. After all of this, he refuses to think of that. He waits.

Blue slides her jaw along his palm, the ridges of her skin so familiar against his own. She keens instantly, calling for him, and he’s there. He tugs her close, tucking her head into the space between his neck and shoulder, cradling her neck in the bend of his elbow. Her jaw vibrates under his hand, chest rumbling against his own. They haven’t been this close since Blue was nothing more than a baby, when she had no sisters to contend with, and he was her entire world. Owen rubs his palm over her cheeks and the hinge of her jaw, stroking tenderly behind her ear. The ridges there are achingly familiar, and his sternum shatters and rebuilds itself around her. Gravity shifts, and he’s pulled into her orbit, because she is the sun and he is nothing but a humble rock. He doesn’t mind. It’s Blue, after all. It’s always been Blue.

She keens for him, and he’s there. Keens high and loud and completely broken, voice shuddering around the need for an answer, the need for _someone_ , for _pack_. She saw her sisters die, she saw it all, and she is all that’s left. She’s been searching for them for days, even though she saw them ripped from her. Blue doesn’t know what to do when she’s alone. Blue is the beta, and she has an alpha, and she has three charges. Blue knows the routine, knows what to do. And she’s alone. Blue is nothing without her pack. She keens, and his abdomen rips open, spilling his guts onto the vivid green grass, and he keens quietly into her ear.

_I’m here_ , he says. _Alpha is here_. He whispers, _pack_.

Blue slides her face along his neck, covering herself in his scent. Clutches at his side with razor-sharp claws, splitting the skin between his ribs, but he doesn’t feel the pain. Barely feels the slick blood running down his sides. All he feels is Blue, the shape of her skin beneath his fingers, and he swallows down the wetness in his eyes and throat.

‘Blue, my clever girl,’ he murmurs. ‘I’m not leaving, Blue. I’m here to stay.’

Blue rumbles into him, pushing closer. She’s solid beneath his hands, and the cobalt stripe feels just like he remembers, sliding like water over his fingertips. He traces it down the length of her neck, relishing the shudder of muscles and tendons as he goes. His hands slide over bone, and it’s too close to the surface of her skin. His eyes follow his fingers, breath catching in his throat when he finally sees it. Her side is painted red, thick claw marks knitting together slowly. Dried blood flakes off, chased away by his fingers, and the scabs are puckered but solid when he touches them. The wound isn’t deep, but it is long. The scores run the length of her flank, catching on the edge of her stripe. The flesh is coming together, light beige instead of the green-blue of her hide. Her ribs stand out starkly, catching the early morning light. She looks so much like Charlie, when she stopped eating, and something inside of him _yanks_ , pulling from his body. Blue, scenting his distress, pulls back, looking him straight in the eye.

Two weeks ago, everything was going fine. For the first time in his life, Owen was okay. He had a home and a pack. He was important. He knew what to do. And now, everything is fucked.

Everything went to shit the moment Owen spotted the Indominus’ clawed graffiti. The moment he fell for her trap, despite the nagging itch in his guts that said he should look deeper. And Owen had scoffed at himself, because there were _claw marks on the wall_ and it doesn’t get more obvious than that.

Holy fuck was he wrong.

If he hadn’t fallen for the most obvious trick in the book, maybe she wouldn’t have escaped. If Lowery had closed the door and trapped him in the Indominus’ cage, she wouldn’t have had the opportunity to smash through the door. His girls would be safe and sound in their paddock. Blue would never suffer the loss of her sisters, wouldn’t be standing before him, nothing more than a sack of skin and bone and teeth. Owen would go back and trade his life in an instant. If he had the ability to time travel, he would have done it by now. Because how the fuck does his life matter when he failed again? He failed and failed and failed and he’s never fucking learned. Every time, he promises himself he’ll never do it again, never make stupid mistakes, and the next thing he knows, he’s completely alone, staring down at his hands and thinking it might be a good idea to cut them off, since they keep making these mistakes. A yawning hole opens wider inside his guts, swallowing his organs but rejecting his emotions, throwing them right back into his face. Blue’s presence is filling the top left chamber of his heart but the rest of it struggles to expand, abused muscle straining. The sensations are so conflicting, so completely unexpected, that Owen’s throat constricts around the sudden urge to throw up. Bile pools at the back of his mouth, bitter and acidic on his tongue. He tries to swallow it down, but his chest is too tight, squeezing tighter by the second. His ribs are molten metal, burning his skin from the inside out, and he can’t breathe. There’s an ache, deep in his intestines, radiating into his pelvis and shocking through his body. His chest is so tight, yet the void in his heart is as vast as space, and he doesn’t know what that means. Doesn’t know how to expand his lungs, or dilute the thick blood clogging his arteries. His legs are numb and his jaw bursts into fire as he clenches his teeth.

The pack would have lived without him. Would have gained a new keeper and appointed Blue as the alpha. Would have been happy, because Owen never was the key to their happiness. He was just the conduit. He enabled them to be happy by giving them what they wanted. Who is he to think himself the alpha? He’s just a fucking puny human, after all. And he’s not even that good at it, if the twisting pain in his chest is any indication. He drives the knife into his heart and yanks, opening the hole even further, because it’s easier to hate himself than it is to hate everyone else. Easier to stab himself in the heart than watch his pack die and Blue’s lost eyes. Easier to rip his own flesh into pieces than turn his ire on Claire. She doesn’t deserve that. He doesn’t deserve her.

Trust and _home_ is shining in Blue’s eyes, and he doesn’t deserve that either. The lump in his throat pours onto his tongue and drops down to his stomach, pulling at it incessantly. A pachy is butting against the inside of his chest, but never succeeding in breaking free of Owen’s ribcage.

‘Yeah, Blue,’ he says, stroking the vulnerable skin under her jaw. ‘I’m home.’

And he’s missing three members of the pack, but he has her, and it’s more than he expected. Blue trills to him, and he hums back, tucking her into the spaces between his ribs. He runs his hands over her, re-learning the feel of her skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally I have decided to stop teasing you!
> 
> This is the longest chapter yet for a good reason.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am very sorry for the wait. This chapter gave me hell, and it's the first to do so. It took me days to finally sit down and get this right. Hope it works!

Blue is hungry.

It’s in the way her nostrils flare when he comes close. In her eyes, orange and sharp and deadly. The colour crackles around her pupils like fire, flaring as he shuffles closer to her, pressing a confident hand to her shoulder.

Blue shudders under his palm, skin shifting over prominent bone. Owen kneels beside her, cataloguing the once graceful slope of her spine. It’s broken by the poke on bone against skin, the knobs of her spine marching down to the bony end of her tail. It’s curled around him, keeping him close. Blue’s legs tuck in between her tail and Owen’s thighs, all cold and hot skin. Owen doesn’t miss the swollen joint, the stiffness in her ankle as she tries to shift without disturbing him. If he hadn’t watched her grow, watched her little claws expand and her legs elongate, he wouldn’t spot the slightly raised skin around her tendons. He’s tempted to press his hands between the ligaments, to feel the squish of fluid on his fingers, but he strokes her neck instead. The awful itch under his fingernails is gone, and it’s something else that trickles into his bloodstream. It’s not quite warm, and yet. Somehow, it thaws the ice coating his ribs and dragging down his lungs. It’s enough, and for once, that’s okay. Better than okay. He can breathe again, and he has Blue. It was worth every fucking shred of pain and grief that still lingers in his chest like deadly shrapnel.

Owen presses his palm into her neck as he sweeps his hand up, letting her know he’s there. She knows it, of course. Her eyes track his every movement, watching keenly despite the primal instinct lurking right beside her pupils. But Owen reminds her, because that’s what he does. Reminds her that he’s in charge. Reminds her to stay calm. Reminds her that she’s okay now. Reminds her she’s not alone. That he’s here to stay.

Blue’s hunger doesn’t sit beside her pupil like it always has. It’s right at the forefront, a thin sheen stretched tight over burning sienna. He’s seen it so many times over the course of her life, and it’s completely foreign. This expression was the first one he saw, when she managed to free herself of egg shards. The hunger is natural: common. It’s what he sees – _saw_ – every day at the paddock. Lazy hunger on a hot summer’s day, barely worth acting upon if it meant giving up the coolness of the shade. Active hunger, on the days Echo wouldn’t calm down, bouncing between her sisters like a pinball and riling them up so thoroughly that Blue had to snarl and snap when it came to feeding time. Burning hunger in winter’s peak, needing the food to keep the cold from seeping into their bones. Calculated hunger on scent-exercise days. But he’s never seen this.

Never seen Blue’s eyes dulled and sharp and exhausted yet so, so alive. Has never been witness to the spasms of her belly, wounded skin clenching and twisting beneath his hands. Has never seen this urgency, the push of animal _desperation_ at Blue’s mind, clouding her vision. Has never seen her predatory urges war so openly with her instinctual knowledge of _pack_.

He’s confusing her. He’s been there since her first second in this vicious world. Been there for every moment of her upbringing. For any other animal, that would earn him unequivocal loyalty. But it’s different for velociraptors. They are apex predators, always observing and thinking and planning. Even at the size of a breadbox, Blue had gone for his throat without a moment’s hesitation. He is prey, but he is also _pack_. Owen’s control over his own emotions has been so complete out of necessity. His girls were always able to sense his moments of vulnerability. Like when Blue was tiny and he let a curl of unease slip from behind his double-sealed vault, and she was clawing at a forearm he didn’t remember putting up. Transferring to his shoulder as soon as he pushed her aside, and hitting the ground roughly as he shoved her away. Even through the pain, he had wrestled his emotions back under his control and her attack stopped, although she couldn’t stop watching him. That scent has given him away more than once, the sudden hint of _prey_ jarring at the girls’ noses and predatory instinct doing the rest. Owen learned to lock everything down, to be present and in control at all times. He was the alpha, after all, and weakness was unacceptable. He should lead from the front or not at all.

But as much as he hates admitting it, he isn’t locked down now. His emotions are swimming on the surface, stinking up his lake of calm. His tangled emotions probably reek more than a fucking septic tank, and he’s not sure how many of them he can name. Owen’s ribs threaten to burst out of his chest, heart thundering behind them, but he swallows it down. Doesn’t quite manage to shake the sickly thick thudding against his lungs or the curl of emotion around his throat.

Her eyes snap to Owen, orange and black and cloudy. Blue is cleverest of them all, it’s in the way she tilts her head, clouds clearing for a few vital moments. She stares into his soul, leaning closer, jaws falling open slightly. Her chest expands against his leg, ever so subtle. She’s scenting him; muzzle twitching with the blast of _sweat blood fear sun grief skin hurt_ practically radiating from his skin. Owen pulls his head higher, doesn’t bother hiding anything from her. She may be weak, but she’s not incapacitated. _Yet_ , a voice whispers in the back of his mind, grabbing his attention with tiny, sticky hands. He pushes _that_ away, because he has Blue now, and he can’t afford to feed the vicious lump in his throat.

Blue is starving, the visible jut of her ribs daring him to say otherwise. She’s right next to an Apatosaurus carcass, for fuck’s sake. She’s attacked him before, and for much less. Now, she just watches him, orange eyes crackling. For a moment, all he sees is a younger Blue, fresh from her dominance fight with Echo, smelling the lingering scent of fear on him. Remembering that Owen is not a velociraptor, no matter how hard he tries. He is pack and not pack. An outsider. An anomaly. He has always been there, but sometimes he smells like the humans they snarl at. The humans they attack.

Owen’s been a part of the pack for too long to overlook Blue’s behavior. She makes no move to eat him, despite the emotions wreaking havoc in his chest. And he’s scared of so many things, but he’s not scared of her. Never has been. If the Indominus Rex hadn’t fucked everything up, Owen always believed that his girls would turn on him. Realize he wasn’t a true alpha and tear him to shreds. He wishes it happened that way: wishes it with every fiber of his being. He might not be alive, but his girls would still be together.

The sunlight catches on blue and white skin, bouncing into his eyes. This is the colour he’s spent his life around – in his bedroom as a kid, in the Navy when he trained Tallulah and Kalila. In the sky and the flash of completely unexpected _blue_ in the trees. It’s the colour he wasn’t sure he’d ever see again, trailing haphazardly down green skin. His ribs expand as far as they can without cracking, his sternum aching with the shitty glue he’s used to put it back together. But that’s okay – Blue is here, and she is alert enough to watch him, blue stripe blazing down her skin.

He loves – and loved – his girls. Echo’s energy; Delta’s mischief; Charlie’s compassion. Blue’s clever, wonderful, stubborn determination. And he’ll never purge the bright peal of flames from his head, or the crunch of broken bone and wheezing lungs. He loves them with everything he has, veins thick and bursting with it, despite being certain of his fate. He’s never had any proof that the girls love him back just as strongly. Charlie came the closest to showing it, when she saved her food for him. Even then, he’d dismissed it as an automatic reaction to his authority in the hierarchy. Alpha first, Beta second. If velociraptors do feel love, he said to himself, then they feel it differently than I do. Loyalty, not love. Trust, not faith.

He looks into Blue’s eyes, eyes blazing with desperate hunger shot through with warm fondness. And he thinks that maybe, just maybe, he was wrong. Because she leans into him, inhaling the mix of _prey_ and _Alpha_ that must be his scent. Blue rests her head on his leg, nosing into the crease of his thigh and hip. She closes her eyes, sighing with what he desperately hopes is contentment. The hunger in her eyes doesn’t matter. He’s her Alpha – he came back. She had faith in him, and he followed through.

Blue is starving and weak and she loves him. A hot air balloon rises in his chest, pulled upwards by one single blazing fire, showing no signs of stopping. The lump in his throat dissolves, replaced by another. The weight on his chest vanishes, ribs finally releasing his lungs from their prison, and he _breathes_. The air tastes heavy on his tongue compared to the lightness in his diaphragm. Owen closes his eyes for a moment, lets himself feel it. The dizzying rush of adrenaline and relief and _pack_. His hand slides across Blue’s muzzle, scaly skin smooth against his palm. It’s wonderful. So much better than he ever imagined, when there was no chance he could do this.

Blue chuffs quietly at him, finishing with a slightly higher trill. She’s perfect, lifting him from the muddled mess that is his life. In a few days, Masrani Global will shove him right back in, but today Owen answers to no one. He is the Alpha, and it still _means_ something. He’s high on the thought, like a sudden shot of morphine into his system. Blue follows him because she loves him.

A smile tugs at his lips, air shuddering out of his lungs. He doesn’t know how long they sit there, but it’s long enough to feel the ache of sunburned flesh. ‘Blue,’ he says after a lifetime, voice crackling. ‘Eyes on me.’

Blue’s head comes up as quickly as she can move. Owen pushes up, standing. He gestures to the Apatosaurus carcass, letting out a sharp whistle. Tries to rid himself of the stench of rotting flesh as Blue hobbles over, tearing off strips of meat. She gulps them down in no time, turning to him. She looks like she might topple over at any moment, but he leads her forward regardless. They have somewhere to be.

Owen leads Blue through the jungle, dappled green light flashing into his eyes and casting random patterns over Blue’s skin. The crunch of his boots on dead leaves is matched only by the scrunch of Blue’s steps. It’s odd, to hear so much noise from her, but Owen sweeps his eyes over the endless maze of tree trunks and ferns. He doesn’t miss the cloudy film settling on her skin, pain dulling her senses. Even when she does manage to properly see her surroundings, he wouldn’t trust her assessment of their environment. The muscles in her thighs judder and tremble with every slow step. Her right leg drags a little, catching dead leaves and bringing them along for the ride. Her wound twitches, abused muscle moving beneath it, and Owen is certain that’s the biggest problem. It lodges in his chest like a python, squeezing his lungs until they scream in anguish. Owen lets himself feel it, but makes sure he’s still sweeping his gaze over the trees. After all, the only reason Blue is walking is Owen. She would not have attempted the journey alone – he knows this. But Owen came back; he’s here now, and he is the Alpha. He has done his job all her life, and that’s not changing now. She trusts him to protect her. Owen keeps careful watch.

Birds screech and launch into the sky in droves. They can sense Blue’s hunger as surely as Owen can, and unlike him, they are not crazy enough to stick around. The sky bustles with them, and he can barely hear Blue’s labored breathing over the endless squawking. Her head snaps up to watch them, eyes tracking the amorphous mass with interest. Owen comes closer, pressing a hand to her back in an effort to steady her. Her spine stiffens under his palm, but she relaxes in the next instant. Her skin is slightly too warm on his own, radiating a heat beyond the heavy oppression of the jungle. Owen pushes every shred of conviction he has into the blue stripe on her back. Keeps moving, because if there’s one thing he’s learned in this life, it’s that he cannot afford to stand still.

Blue pushes forward, and pride blooms beneath his lungs. He still watches her, as he always has, but he isn’t worried. She can do this.

Owen loses himself in the sweep of eyes over trees, green and brown swimming in his vision. Loses himself in the feel of sun in his hair and Blue’s hot skin. The sound of crunching leaves and angry birds. It’s familiar, like he was meant for this. Maybe he always was.

The sky is turning a pale orange by the time they make it to the paddock. The gates are still wide open, but Blue’s old tracks are gone. A new layer of fallen leaves coats the bare ground precluding the gates, green and brown patterned on the dirt. There’s a line of ants marching towards the gate, obviously following some sixth sense for food. Blue, her gait slowing to nothing more than an exhausted shuffle, follows him through the gates. Owen lets her explore while he turns around, shutting the gate. It’s not locked, but there’s nothing else in here and it’s the safest place to be. Satisfied with the gate’s integrity, Owen glances to his left, spotting Blue by the fence. She’s nestled in a gentle, perfectly raptor-shaped dip, nosing in the dirt. Owen slots himself into the space between her legs and belly, her tail curling around his back. It’s the position Blue likes the most, he’s discovering. She nestles her head between his leg and the outside of their little pit, one eye slitted open. Watches him with exhaustion, the hunger gone. There’s something else there, and her throat trembles with it, chest expanding in odd bursts. It’s cool, nowhere near as passionate as Owen is used to seeing, when he looks in the mirror, but it’s still there. The awful, empty agony. The missing pieces, leaving nothing but an empty void where they should be. The lack is so obvious, so glaring.

‘Yeah, I know,’ Owen says to her, bending in half to get closer to her. ‘This is Charlie’s spot.’

Blue keens at him, her voice shaking miserably. It’s so quiet that it peters out occasionally, even though he can still her the air passing from her throat. Blue’s voice rises and falls, and he hums along with her. Her chest doesn’t hitch, but her breathing is irregular, her throat working furiously. Her eyes squeeze shut for just a moment, then she’s looking up at him again, orange overlaid with glassy moisture and water streaking through the ridges of her face.

He’s never seen a raptor cry before, and lump in his chest screams. Pushes up into his ribs and stomach and throat, begging to leave. Something snaps in his chest, his diaphragm spasming with it. Wetness slices down his face, into his guts. His lungs hitch dangerously, and a broken sound slips from between his teeth. God, he misses them so much. Misses them like he longs for the sun in winter. Needs them like he needs water, if only to feel the cool slide of relief down his throat. Blue’s cry stutters out, her panting breaths ringing in his ears. She’s so clever – too clever for her own good.

‘I love them too,’ he whispers, the sobs washing over him like the ocean, familiar and constant, ebbing and flowing. Blue just nuzzles against his leg, squeezing her eyes shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone is interested, I am toying with the idea of writing a little (DVD) commentary for this story. Thoughts?


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's the final chapter, my friends! Please do enjoy, and don't forget to comment if you liked it (or hated it, whatever floats your boat).

Jurassic World is dead.

Owen came here three years ago, ready to rebuild his life. Stood in this very spot, surrounded by tourists and the bustle of life. The happy squeals of children still ring in his ears, and for a moment, colour bursts into his vision, pulsing in his head. He sees it so clearly. Always has. The streets are empty now, the buildings mostly demolished. The board rebuilt Margaritaville and the pizza shop after stringent protests from the employees. The Hilton gets a makeover and the other researchers and handlers move in permanently. From the inside, the hotel resembles an apartment complex, and it’s always bustling with activity. On the outside, Owen only sees the occasional Jeep, and the Mosasaurus handler, who spends the day perched on her little platform, staring out across the water or scribbling frantically in her notebook.

They don’t rebuild Jurassic World the theme park. But they do keep Jurassic World the research facility.

Almost everyone returns. The staff aren’t willing to give up the chance to work on Isla Nublar. There are so many people who would take their places in a heartbeat, so Claire sets her jaw, the Rex handlers clench their fists, and the Apatosaurus keeper braces for the long haul. It’s a fuck ton of work, and they all know it. But they’ve put in too much to have it destroyed now. The Masrani Global Board has sunk too much money into Jurassic World just to have it waste away. Once Owen informed them of Blue’s miraculous survival – phoning in from the raptor paddock, completely unable to leave her – the Board sat on their collective asses for days. Claire managed to talk them down from putting Blue to sleep, thank _fuck_ , and from what Barry’s told him, she used every statistic in her arsenal to cajole them. In the end, the Board claims it’s all their idea: that it’s going to be cheaper to hatch three new eggs than four. Owen doesn’t care. All he knows is that Blue will stay here with him.

People call them crazy. Deluded. Suicidal. But Owen came to a remote island to raise a bunch of Velociraptors, giving up a prestigious position in the Navy. They’re all a bit crazy. They work with _dinosaurs_ , for fuck’s sake. And somewhere along the line, things changed. This is his home now. Even standing in the street where he lost his pack, where he almost lost everything, just makes his spine straighten. Makes his focus sharpen, and he feels like he can spot a grain of sand in a monsoon.

Other times, the world blurs. His shoulders pull inwards, and his ribs are yanked out one at a time. And he doesn’t remember where he is anymore. Doesn’t remember _why_ he needs to focus. Sometimes, his attention wanders. And then they are there, ghostly and intangible but somehow real. Tallulah’s mischievous grin slides around in the corner of his eye, fading when he turns to look. The flash of Kalila’s sleek dorsal follows it, and they never meet. Echo’s feet make tiny hops, excited; yet he never sees the rest of her. His barely-repaired sternum creaks, and all he wants to do is inspect the butterfly he knows she’s trying to show him. The curve of Delta’s neck hangs at the edges of his sight. When he sits in front of a computer too long, when he finally manages to lose track of the world around him, she is there. A long, sinewy stretch, skin and muscle bunching as she pulls her head back. He never sees the dappled green on her snout, or the glowing amber in her eyes. But he _knows_ the crinkle of striped skin like he knows his bike. Knows she’s creeping up on him, ready to pounce. She never completes her goal.

But it’s Charlie he sees the most. He sees nothing but her eyes and the ridges around them, the rest of her head fading into some place he can’t perceive. He can never truly look her in the eye again – the flimsy image vanishes whenever he glances in its direction. It tugs at his chest, sitting heavily on his sternum. Charlie watches him when he sits by the paddock fence. She watches when he handles Blue’s food. She watches when he spends his afternoons smoothing his hands across Blue’s skin. She watches when he forgets to eat, and he can feel her eyes on him, intent, but he can never meet her gaze. He never knows what is in those eyes, and he never will. Owen’s diaphragm contracts stubbornly every time he glances over to find empty air. Does anger still crackle in her eyes, or is she finally free from the Indominus’ influence? All he wants to see is the sparkle of laughter in her eyes, one last time.

In the end, Owen came here to escape the nightmares, and now he’s not sure if he’ll ever sleep well again.

Some nights, he dreams. Owen is used to the dreams – to the intermingling _mess_ that he’s never quite sure are dreams or nightmares. He’s been having them for as long as he can remember. The orange flicker has featured ever since he was a kid, dancing seductively behind closed eyelids. Brighter orange flashes followed it, billowing clouds of fire and steam reaching high into the air. Vivid red swirling through clear liquid, slipping through orange-tinted fingers and coating every available surface. Grey and red and pallid flesh. Now, he dreams of his girls. Tallulah races through the air, high chattering laugh slicing through his ears. Echo chases after her, screeching excitedly. She stops suddenly, facing the dream’s cameraman. Butterflies spill from her open mouth, and Owen can’t reach out to stroke a hand over her nose and tell her his impressed he is.

Delta springs onto Tallulah, but the cheeky dolphin slips free of her grasp. Delta’s thighs judder with excited tension, and she is happy. The two of them are more mischief than any normal person can handle. Charlie, by comparison, is quiet. She noses Kalila, rumbling contentedly, and together they rise. Charlie dances to her own beat – she and Kalila twirl around each other in perfect time. And they are so graceful, turning around and around in an endless dance.

Those are the nights he wishes he woke up in panic. Instead, he listens to the frantic thunder of his heart, barely audible over the wheezing in his lungs. It’s Claire’s arms that encircle him, her skin that slides against his. And he can’t stop the hitching of his ribs. Each one is stabbing frantically into his lungs, trying desperately to reach something he can’t feel. His throat seizes, catching dangerously, and his oesophagus aches like it’s been sewn together with empty promises. When he can’t feel his tongue, but he _can_ feel the wetness of his skin. His cheekbones are sticky yet slippery, stained with something he’ll never get out. And he wonders where that sound is coming from – the high keen that sounds so much like Charlie when she was tiny and Owen left her sight. The worst nights are when he realizes it’s him, and that always brings a fresh round of hitching sobs into his throat. Owen gives them up without a fight, letting them spill from his mouth like vomit. It tastes disgusting, lingers for the rest of the day, but nothing he does will wash the sobs from his throat and the stickiness from his cheeks. Claire does her best, wrapping warm, sleepy arms around his ribs and pulling him close, forearms tucked along the line of his shoulder blades. She listens to the awful sobs sawing out of his chest, presses kisses on his cheekbones. She whispers something there, but he doesn’t hear her. He doesn’t hear anything over the desperate thunder assaulting his ears. Owen is thrown into a pestle, the mortar grinding away at his body. It aches, and his chest isn’t big enough to contain it all. Not any more.

And he cries. He fucking cries, because they are happy and they left him behind. They left Owen and Blue behind.

By day, he is Owen Grady, Behavioral Analyst Specializing In Velociraptor Research. He prepares the meat, as he always did, except he always prepares too much. He’s not used to feeding just one raptor, and Barry just takes away what they don’t need, something dark and sad lurking in his eyes. Owen spends more time with Blue, rememorizing the ridges of her skin, the dips and bumps that make her _Blue_. He murmurs to her, uses his voice and hands to tell her he won’t leave again. To show that he’s still here, and to stroke his story into her skin. To give her his pain, and to take hers. _Pack_ is sharing everything. _Pack_ means being together, always.

He tells her he won’t name her new sisters Foxtrot, Golf, and Hotel. Whispers it into Blue’s ear as he runs his hands over her scarred skin. And when the staff finish for the day, Owen sneaks back to the paddock. He opens the gate and whistles for Blue, opening his arms for her. She slides out of the undergrowth and into his arms, and they are a pool on the ground, never able to tell where one ends and the other begins. He learns the feel of scar tissue on his fingertips, the pucker of healed skin. Owen massages the tension from those scars, pushing it from the line of her ribs. He sings to her, all of the lullabies he remembers from his childhood, and she shudders into relaxation. He holds her with steady hands and a sure heart. He keeps talking, telling her about the three eggs in the hatchery that are somehow less perfect than her sisters’ were. About the eggshells, rough on his fingertips, and how his gut aches while his heart soars. Blue just rumbles at him where appropriate, rubbing her head along his thigh. Owen traces lines and patterns into her skin, wishing they would stay there permanently. The gentle drag of her alpha’s skin lulls her into bonelessness. Owen keeps her there. And she sleeps, because nothing can break them now.

‘Are you going to name the girls from Foxtrot onwards?’ Claire asks him one lazy afternoon. The sun slants through the window, warming the skin of his arm and heating the sheets. It tingles on the hair over his forearms, catching on the tendons lining his hands.

‘Nah,’ he replies, drawling long and slow. ‘I’m changing it up.’

He names Charlie, Delta, and Echo because those names meant nothing. They were words he’d heard his entire life. But the girls never stuck to convention.

He names his new charges Brooke, Estelle and Alessia. Those names mean nothing to him.

‘Good names,’ Claire says quietly, hand light on his chest and leg wrapped around his own. She seeps warmth into him, and he clutches it, drawing it into his core. She presses a kiss into his shoulder, pale eyes focused on him. She knows what he’s doing, but she doesn’t call him on it. Her fingers ghost over the black ink marching across his side. Owen never bothered with tattoos in the Navy, not when he spent almost all of his time on base. But now, he carries the ink on his skin like a badge. A reminder. Charlie never made it out of the jungle. Echo became nothing more than ash. Delta was fed to the mosasaur like a fucking _snackie_. The day he gets the tattoo, his skin tingles and he’s finally alive. The pain is perfect. Claire offers to erect a statue in the pack’s honor, but Owen just shakes his head, pushing her hand into his right side. Now, the sun slants unevenly over carefully printed script, rising and falling with each breath. The stark black lines are tucked in the spaces between his ribs, the place the girls squeezed in and left empty.

Owen’s hand joins Claire’s, wandering over the slightly raised text. _Puellae eratis, et nunc reginae estis. Olim ad silvam ambulo. Nunc tui video._ His fingers dance over the words, but he doesn’t need to see them. Just needs the scrape of skin on skin. His palm finally comes to rest on his chest, covering the inscription over his heart. _Meus aurea reginae amo. Meus iniuriam dono._

Jurassic World isn’t home. He doesn’t repair his bungalow, because it doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a heap of wood and metal now. This island isn’t home. Claire isn’t home, although he thinks that maybe one day she might be. The paddock isn’t home, even if it’s where he spends all of his time. And despite all of the time he spends at Margaritaville, it’s not home either.

Blue curls around him, tucking her face against his chest. Warm puffs of air push at his shirt like the ocean, constant and real. His soul doesn’t hurt anymore, and his pelvis doesn’t ache. He can breathe. His ribs may creak and bend but they don’t break. Owen strokes his palm down her spine, cupping her hip. It’s right, and he can’t help the smile that pulls at his cheeks. No one is here to see it, and the rise of Blue’s chest is slow with sleep, but he smiles anyway.

Pack means looking beyond yourself.

Owen looks and sees endless cobalt stripes winding across his hands. He sees starlight on scales and the empty void of space that can’t touch him now. Finally, the universe stops. The Earth halts, the moon hangs in the sky. He can see it all, the galaxy open before him, but his eyes are drawn down. His gaze never strays. She is stronger than any black hole could ever dream of. Owen lets go of everything else, and it doesn’t hurt. Doesn’t feel anything but right. He’s not okay – not sure he ever will be again – and yet. He has a piece of his pack. And pack –

Pack is home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The basic tattoo translation is thus:  
> Puellae eratis, et nunc reginae estis. Olim ad magna silvam ambulo. Nunc tui video.   
> Meus aurea reginae amo. Meus iniuriam dono.   
> You used to be girls, and now you are queens. Once, I walked through a great forest. Now I see you (plural).  
> I love my golden queens. Forgive my injustice. 
> 
> If you're sad that this is over, say no more! I'm going to be writing a director's commentary for this wondrously torturous work, so ask any questions you want and I'll try by best to answer them in the commentary. Otherwise, it's just going to be me waffling on about the writing process and a heap of stuff that may be considered boring. (Although it is worth mentioning that I will have a little more to say on the tattoo translation in that section.)
> 
> Ask me your questions!
> 
> For now, I'd just like to thank anyone who has stuck with me. Between my fucked upload schedule and the slowish pace of the fic, I am willing to shake the hand of anyone who is still here. You guys have been great and I am honoured to thank whoever has made it to this silly thank you. Thanks to the commenters and the readers, and remember that I'm always happy to have a long, drawn-out conversation about the Raptor Squad.
> 
> (Also if you should wish to do some art or make this into a podfic, I will love you forever. But that's a different story.)
> 
> Until next time!


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